
aassJMaZ^ 

Book T4-T 




THE WORKS 



OF 



W. M. THACKERAY 



^ 



THE WOKKS.:^r^^m^ 



h 



OF 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 



IN TWENTY-FOUR VOLUMES 
VOLUME XVI IL 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 

AND 



CRITICAL REVIE 




LONDON: SMITH, ELDER, & CO. 

PHILADELPHIA: J. E. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 

1879 






-,-r7*"rran^ 



f ei: 



THE 



IRISH SKETCH BOOK 



AND 



CRITICAL REVIEWS 



BY 

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY THK AUTHOR 
GEORGE CRUIKSHANK, JOHN LEECH, AND M. FITZGERALD 



LONDON: SMITH, ELDER, & CO. 

PHILADELPHIA: J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 

1879 



>^.K 



•^i 



TO 

CHARLES LEVER, Esq. 

of templeogue house, near dublin. 

My dear Lever, 

Harry Lorrequer needs no complimenting in a 
dedication; and I would not venture to inscribe this volume to the 
Editor of the " Dublin University Magazine," who, I fear, must dis- 
approve of a great deal which it contains. 

But allow me to dedicate my little book to a good Irishman (the 
hearty charity of whose visionary red-coats, some substantial per- 
sonages in black might imitate to advantage), and to a friend from 
whom I have received a hundred acts of kindness and cordial 
hospitality. 

Laying aside for a moment the travelling-title of Mr. Titmarsh, let 
me acknowledge these favours in my own name, and subscribe myself, 

my dear Lever, 

Most sincerely and gratefully yours, 

W. M. THACKERAY. 

London, April 2^, 1843. 




CONTENTS. 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 

OF 1842. 

CHAP. PAGE 

Dedication vii 

I. A Summer Day in Dublin, or there and thereabouts i 

II. A Country-house in Kildare— Sketches of an Irish 

Family and Farm 25 

III. From Carlow to Waterford 35 

IV. From Waterford to Cork 46 

V. Cork— The Agricultural Show— Father Mathew . . 56 

VI. Cork — The Ursuline Convent 65 

VII. Cork 74 

VIII. From Cork to Bantry; with an Account of tkk City 

OF Skibbereen 86 

IX. Rainy Days at Glengariff 97 

X. From Glengariff to Killarney 104 

XI. Killarney— Stag-hunting on the Lake . . . . 113 

XII. Killarney —The Races— Muckross ..... 121 

XIII. Tralee— LisTOWEL— Tarbert 131 

XIV. Ltmerick .138 



rx 



CONTENTS. 



CHAP. PAGE 

XV. Galway— "KiLROY's Hotel"— Galway Nights' En- 
TERTAiNMENTS— First Night : an Evening with 

Captain Freeny 151 

XVI. More Rain in Galway— A Walk there— And the 

Second Galway Night's Entektainment . . ,169 

XVII. From Galway to Ballinahinch 194 

"XVIII. Roundstone Petty Sessions 205 

XIX. Clifden to Westport 211 

XX. Westport 218 

XXI. The Pattern at Croaghpatrick ■ 224 

XXII. From Westport to Ballinasloe 229 

XXIII. Ballinasloe to Dublin 234 

XXIV, Two Days in Wicklow 240 

XXV. Country Meetings in Kildare— Mkath — Drogheda 257 

XXVI. Dundalk 270 

XXVII. Newry, Armagh, Belfast— From Dundalk to Newry 284 

XXVIII. Belfast to the Causeway 296 

XXIX. The Giant's Causeway— Coleraine—Portrush. .306 

XXX. Peg of Limavaddy 318 

XXXI. Templemoyle— Derry 323 

XXXII. Dublin at last -335 



CRITICAL REVIEWS. 

George Cruikshank 351 

John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character . . .395 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 

OF 1842 




IRISH SKETCH BOOK, 



CHAPTER I. 



A SUMMER DAY IN DUBLIN, OR THERE AND THEREABOUTS. 

■"■~^^^^^^^'/^^p////J^5|f^?^^f^ ^^ coach that brings the 



y passenger by wood and moun- 
tain, by brawhng waterfall and 
gloomy plain, by the loneh" 
lake of Festiniog and across 
the swinging world's wonder 
of a Menai Bridge, through 
dismal Anglesea to dismal 
Holyhead — the Birmingham 
mail, — manages matters so 
cleverly, that after ten hours' 
ride the traveller is thrust 
incontinently on board the 
packet, and the steward says 
there's no use in providing 
dinner on board because the 
passage is so short. 

That is true : but why not 
give us half an hour on shore? Ten hours spent on a coach-box 
render the dinner question one of extreme importance ; and as the 
packet reaches Kingstown at midnight, when all the world is asleep. 




4 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

the inn-larders locked up, and the cook in bed; and as the mail is not 
landed until five in the morning (at which hour the passengers are 
considerately awakened by a great stamping and shouting overhead), 
might not "Lord Lowther " give us one httle half hour? Even the 
steward agreed that it was a useless and atrocious tyranny; and, 
indeed, after a little demur, produced a half-dozen of fried eggs, a 
feeble makeshift for a dinner. 

Our passage across from the Head was made in a rain so pouring 
and steady, that sea and coast were entirely hidden from us, and one 
could see very little beyond the glowing tip of the cigar which remained 
alight nobly in spite of the weather. When the gallant exertions of 
that fiery spirit were over for ever, and burning bravely to the end it 
had breathed its last in doing its master service, all became black and 
cheerless around; the passengers had dropped off one by one, pre- 
ferring to be dry and ill below rather than wet and squeamish above : 
even the mate, with his gold-laced cap (who is so astonishingly like 
Mr. Charles Dickens that he might pass for that gentleman)— even 
the mate said he would go to his cabin and turn in. So there 
remained nothing for it but to do as all the world had done. 

Hence it was impossible to institute the comparison between the 
Bay of Naples and that of Dublin (the Bee of Neeples the former is 
sometimes called in this country), where I have heard the likeness 
asserted in a great number of societies and conversations. But how 
could one see the Bay of Dublin in the dark? and how, supposing 
one could see it, should a person behave who has never seen the Bay 
of Naples? It is but to take the similarity for granted, and remain in 
bed till morning. 

When everybody was awakened at five o'clock by the noise made 
upon the removal of the mail-bags, there was heard a cheerless 
dribbling and pattering overhead, which led one to wait still further 
until the rain should cease. At length the steward said the last boat 
was going ashore, and receiving half-a-crown for his own services (the 
regular tariff), intimated likewise that it was the custom for gentlemen 
to compliment the stewardess with a shilling, which ceremony was 
also complied with. No doubt she is an amiable woman, and 
deserves any sum of money. As for inquiring whether she merited 
it or not in this instance, that surely is quite unfair. A traveller who 
stops to inquire the deserts of every individual claimant of a shilling 
on his road, had best stay quiet at home. If we only got what we 
deserved^ — heaven save us ! — many of us might whistle for a dinner. 

A long pier, with a steamer or two at hand, and a few small vessels 



LANDING AT KINGSTOWN. S 

lying on either side of the jetty; a town irregularly built, with many 
handsome terraces, some churches, and showy-looking hotels ; a few 
people straggling on the beach; two or three cars at the railroad 
station, which runs along the shore as far as Dublin ; the sea 
stretching interminably eastward; to the north the Hill of Howth, 
lying grey behind the mist ; and, directly under his feet, upon the wet, 
black, shining, slippery deck, an agreeable reflection of his own legs, 
disappearing seemingly in the direction of the cabin from which he 




issues : are the sights which a traveller may remark on coming on 
deck at Kingstown pier on a wet morning — let us say on an average 
morning ; for according to the statement of well-informed natives, the 
Irish day is more often rainy than otherwise. A hideous obelisk, 
stuck upon four fat balls, and surmounted with a crown on a cushion 
(the latter were no bad emblems perhaps of the monarch in whose 
honour they were raised), commemorates the sacred spot at which 
George IV. quitted Ireland. You are landed here from the steamer; 
and a carman, who is dawdling in the neighbourhood, with a straw in 



6 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

his mouth, comes leisurely up to ask whether you will go to Dublin? 
Is it natural indolence, or the effect of despair because of the 
neighbouring railroad, which renders him so indifferent?— He does 
not even take the straw out of his mouth as he proposes the question 
— he seems quite careless as to the answer. 

He said he would take me to Dublin " in three quarthers,' as soon 
as we began a parley. As to the fare, he would not hear of it — he said 
he would leave it to my honour ; he would take me for nothing. Was 
It possible to refuse such a genteel offer? The times are very much 
changed since those described by the facetious Jack Hinton, when the 
carmen tossed up for the passenger, and those who won him took 
him : for the remaining cars on the stand did not seem to take the 
least interest in the bargain, or to offer to overdrive or underbid their 
comrade in any way. 

Before that day, so memorable for joy and sorrow, for rapture at 
receiving its monarch and tearful grief at losing him, when George IV. 
came and left the maritime resort of the citizens of Dublin, it bore a 
less genteel name than that which it owns at present, and was called 
Dunleary. After that glorious event Dunleary disdained to be 
Dunleary any longer, and became Kingstown henceforward and for 
ever. Numerous terraces and pleasure-houses have been built in the 
place — they stretch row after row along the banks of the sea, and rise 
one above another on the hill. The rents of these houses are said to 
be very high; the Dublin citizens crowd into them in summer ; and a 
great source of pleasure and comfort must it be to them to have the 
fresh sea-breezes and prospects so near to the metropolis. 

The better sort of houses are handsome and spacious ; but the 
fashionable quarter is yet in an unfinished state, for enterprising 
architects are always beginning new roads, rows and terraces : nor are 
those already built by any means complete. Beside the aristocratic 
part of the town is a commercial one, and nearer to Dublin stretch 
lines of low cottages which have not a Kingstown look at all, but are 
evidently of the Dunleary period. It is quite curious to see in the 
streets where the shops are, how often the painter of the sign-boards 
begins with big letters, and ends, for want of space, with small; and 
the Enghshman accustomed to the thriving neatness and regularity 
which characterize towns great and small in his own country, can't fail 
to notice the difference here. The houses have a battered, rakish 
look, and seem going to ruin before their time. As seamen of all 
nations come hither who have made no vow of temperance, there are 
plenty of liquor-shops still, and shabby cigar-shops, and shabby 



ENTRANCE TO DUBLIN. 7 

milliners' and tailors' with fly-blown prints of old fashions. The 
bakers and apothecaries make a great brag of their calling, and you 

see MEDICAL HALL, or PUBLIC BAKERY, BALLYRAGGET FLOUR-STORE, 

(or whatever the name may be,) pompously inscribed over very 
humble tenements. Some comfortable grocers' and butchers' shops, 
and numbers of shabby sauntering people, the younger part of whom 
are barelegged and bareheaded, make up the rest of the picture which 
the stranger sees as his car goes jingling through the street. 

After the town come the suburbs of pleasure-houses ; low, one- 
storeyed cottages for the most part : some neat and fresh, some that 
have passed away from the genteel state altogether, and exhibit down- 
right poverty ; some in a state of transition, with broken windows and 
pretty romantic names upon tumble-down gates. Who hves in them.'' 
One fancies that the chairs and tables inside are broken, that the tea- 
pot on the breakfast-table has no spout, and the tablecloth is ragged 
and sloppy ; that the lady of the house is in dubious curl-papers, and 
the gentleman, with an imperial to his chin, wears a flaring dressing- 
gown all ragged at the elbows. 

To be sure, a traveller who in ten minutes can see not only the 
outsides of houses, but the interiors of the same, must have remarkably 
keen sight; and it is early yet to speculate. It is clear, however, that 
these are pleasure-houses for a certain class; and looking at the 
houses, one can't but fancy the inhabitants resemble them somewhat. 
The car, on its road to Dublin, passes by numbers of these — by more 
shabbiness than a Londoner will see in the course of his home 
peregrinations for a year. 

The capabilities of the country, however, are very great, and in 
many instances have been taken advantage of : for you see, besides 
the misery, numerous handsome houses and parks along the road, 
having fine lawns and woods ; and the sea is in our view at a quarter 
of an hour's ride from Dublin. It is the continual appearance of this 
sort of wealth which makes the poverty more striking: and thus 
between the two (for there is no vacant space of fields between 
Kingstown and Dublin) the car reaches the city. There is but Httle 
commerce on this road, which was also in extremely bad repair. It 
is neglected for the sake of its thriving neighbour the railroad ; on 
which a dozen pretty httle stations accommodate the inhabitants of 
the various villages through which we pass. 

The entrance to the capital is very handsome. There is no bustle 
and throng of carriages, as in London ; but you pass by numerous 
rows of neat houses, fronted with gardens and adorned with all sorts 



8 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

of gay-looking creepers. Pretty market-gardens, with trim beds of 
plants and shining glass-houses, give the suburbs a riaiite and 
cheerful look; and, passing under the arch of the railway, we are in the 
city itself. Hence you come upon several old-fashioned, well-built, 
airy, stately streets, and through Fitzwilliam Square, a noble place, 
the garden of which is full of flowers and foliage. The leaves are 
green, and not black as in similar places in London ; the red brick 
houses tall and handsome. Presently the car stops before an 
extremely big red house, in that extremely large square, Stephen's 
Green, where Mr. O'Connell says there is one day or other to be a Par- 
liament. There is room enough for that, or for any other edifice which 
fancy or patriotism may have a mind to erect, for part of one of the 
sides of the square is not yet built, and you see the fields and the 
country beyond. 



This then is the chief city of the aliens.— The hotel to which I had 
been directed is a respectable old edifice, much frequented by families 
from the country, and where the solitary traveller may likewise find 
society : for he may either use the '' Shelburne " as an hotel or a 
boarding-house, in which latter case he is comfortably accommodated 
at the very moderate daily charge of six-and-eightpence. For this 
charge a copious breakfast is provided for him in the coffee-room, a 
perpetual luncheon is likewise there spread, a plentiful dinner is ready 
at six o'clock : after which there is a drawing-room and a rubber of 
whist, with tay and coffee and cakes in plenty to satisfy the largest 
appetite. The hotel is majestically conducted by clerks and other 
officers ; the landlord himself does not appear, after the honest, com- 
fortable English fashion, but lives in a private mansion hard by, where 
his name may be read inscribed on a brass-plate, hke that of any other 
private gentleman. 

A woman melodiously crying " Dublin Bay herrings "' passed just 
as we came up to the door, and as that fish is famous throughout 
Europe, I seized the earliest opportunity and ordered a broiled one 
for breakfast. It merits all its reputation : and in this respect I 
should think the Bay of Dublin is far superior to its rival of Naples. 
Are there any herrings in Naples Bay ? Dolphins there may be ; and 
Mount Vesuvius, to be sure, is bigger than even the Hill of Howth ; 
but a dolphin is better in a sonnet than at a breakfast, and what poet 
is there that, at certain periods of the day, would hesitate in his choice 
between the two t 



IRISH NEWSPAPERS. 9 

With this famous broiled herring the morning papers are served 
up ; and a great part of these, too, gives opportunity of reflection to 
the new-comer, and shows him how different this country is from his 
own. Some hundred years hence, when students want to inform 
themselves of the history of the present day, and refer to files of Times 
and ChroJiicle for the purpose, I think it is possible that they will 
consult, not so much those luminous and philosophical leading-articles 
which call our attention at present both by the majesty of their 
eloquence and the largeness of their type, but that they will turn to 
those parts of the journals into which information is squeezed in the 
smallest possible print : to the advertisements, namely, the law and 
police reports, and to the instructive narratives supplied by that ill- 
used body of men who transcribe knowledge at the rate of a penny a 
line. 

The papers before me {The Morning Registe?^, Liberal and Roman 
Catholic, Saunders's News-Letter, neutral and Conservative,) give a 
lively picture of the movement of city and country on this present 
fourth day of July, 1842, and the Englishman can scarcely fail, as he 
reads them, to note many small points of difference existing between 
his own country and this. How do the Irish amuse themselves in the 
capital t The love for theatrical exhibitions is evidently not very great. 
Theatre Royal — Miss Kemble and the Sonnambula, an Anglo-Italian 
importation. Theatre Royal, Abbey Street — The Temple of Magic 
and the Wizard, last week. Adelphi Theatre, Great Brunswick Street 
— The Original Seven Lancashire Bell-ringers : a delicious excitement 
indeed! Portobello Gardens— "The LAST ERUPTION BUT Six," says 
the advertisement in capitals. And, finally, " Miss Hayes will give 
her first and farewell concert at the Rotunda, previous to leaving her 
native country." Only one instance of Irish talent do we read of, 
and that, in a desponding tone, announces its intention of quitting 
its native country. All the rest of the pleasures of the evening are 
importations from cockney-land. The Sonnambula from Covent 
Garden, the Wizard from the Strand, the Seven Lancashire Bell- 
ringers from Ishngton, or the City Road, no doubt ; and as for " The 
last Eruption but Six," it has ernmped near the "Elephant and Castle" 
any time these two years, until the cockneys would wonder at it no 
longer. 

The commercial advertisements are but few— a few horses and cars 
for sale ; some flaming announcements of insurance companies ; some 
" emporiums " of Scotch tweeds and English broadcloths ; an auction 
for damaged sugar j and an estate or two for sale. They lie in the 



lo THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

columns languidly, and at their ease as it were : how different from 
the throng, and squeeze, and bustle of the commercial part of a 
London paper, where every man (except Mr. George Robins) states his 
case as briefly as possible, because thousands more are to be heard 
besides himself, and as if he had no time for talking ! 

The most active advertisers are the schoolmasters. It is now the 
happy time of the Midsummer hohdays ; and the pedagogues make 
wonderful attempts to encourage parents, and to attract fresh pupils 
for the ensuing half-year. Of all these announcements that of Madame 
Shanahan (a delightful name) is perhaps the most briUiant. " To 
Parents and Guardians. — Paris. — Such parents and guardians as may 
wish to entrust their children for education in its fullest extent to 
]\Iadame Shanahan, can have the advantage of being cojidiicted to 
Paris by her brother, the Rev, J. P. O'Reilly, of Church Street Chapel :" 
which admirable arrangement carries the parents to Paris and leaves 
the children in Dublin. Ah, Madame, you may take a French title ; 
but your heart is still in your country, and you are to i\it fullest extent 
an Irishwoman still ! 

Fond legends are to be found in Irish books regarding places 
where you may now see a round tower and a little old chapel, twelve 
feet square, where famous universities are once said to have stood, 
and which have accommodated myriads of students. Mrs. Hall 
mentions Glendalough, in Wicklow, as one of these places of learning ; 
nor can the fact be questioned, as the universities existed hundreds of 
years since, and no sort of records are left regarding them. A cen- 
tury hence some antiquary may light upon a Dublin paper, and form 
marvellous calculations regarding the state of education in the country. 
For instance, at Bective House Seminary, conducted by Doctor J. L. 
Burke, ex-Scholar T. C. D., no less than t^uo himdred and three young 
gentlemen took prizes at the Midsummer examination : nay, some of 
the most meritorious carried off a dozen premiums a-piece. A Doctor 
Delamere, ex-scholar T. C. D., distributed three hundred and twenty 
rewards to his young friends : and if we allow that one lad in twenty is 
a prizeman, it is clear that there must be six thousand four hundred and 
forty youths under the Doctor's care. 

Other schools are advertised in the same journals, each with its 
hundred of prize-bearers ; and if other schools are advertised, how 
many more must there be in the country which are not advertised ! 
There must be hundreds of thousands of prizemen, millions of scholars ; 
besides national-schools, hedge-schools, infant-schools, and the like. 
The English reader will see the accuracy of the calculation. 



IRISH NEWSPAPERS. ii 

In the Moi'ning Registe?', the Englishman will find something to 
the full as curious and startling to him : you read gravely in the 
Enghsh language how the Bishop of Aurehopolis has just been con- 
secrated ; and that the distinction has been conferred upon him by — 
the Holy Pontiff ! — the Pope of Rome, by all that is holy ! Such an 
announcement sounds quite strange in English, and in your own 
country, as it weie : or isn't it your own country? Suppose the 
Archbishop of Canterbury were to send over a clerg}^man to Rome, 
and consecrate him Bishop of the Palatine or the Suburra, I wonder 
how his Holiness would like tliat? 

There is a report of Doctor Miley's sermon upon the occasion of the 
new bishop's consecration ; and the Register happily lauds the dis- 
course for its "refined and fervent eloquepce." The Doctor salutes 
the Lord Bishop of Aureliopolis on his admission among the " Princes 
of the Sanctuary," gives a blow en passant at the Established Church 
whereof the revenues, he elegantly says, "rnight excite the zeal of 
Dives or Epicurus to become a bishop," and having vented his sly 
wrath upon the " courtly artifice and intrigue " of the Bench, proceeds 
to make the most outrageous comparisons with regard to my Lord of 
Aureliopolis ; his virtues, his sincerity, and the severe privations and 
persecutions which acceptance of the episcopal office entails upon 
him. 

" That very evening," says the Register, " the new bishop enter- 
tained at dinner, in the chapel-house, a select number of friends ; 
amongst whom were the officiating prelates and clergymen who 
assisted in the ceremonies of the day. The repast was provided by 
Mr. Jude, of Grafton Street, and was served up in a style of elegance 
and comfort that did great honour to that gentleman's character as a 
restaurateur. The ivines were of the richest and rarest quality . It 
may be truly said to have been an entertainment where the feast of 
reason and the flow of soul predominated. The company broke up at 
nine." 

And so my lord is scarcely out of chapel but his privations begin ! 
Well. Let us hope that, in the course of his episcopacy, he may 
incur no greater hardships, and that Doctor Miley may come to be 
a bishop too in his time ; when perhaps he will have a better opinion 
of the Bench. 

The ceremony and feelings described are curious, I think ; and 
more so perhaps to a person who was in England only yesterday, and 
quitted it just as their Graces, Lordships, and Reverences were sitting 
down to dinner. Among what new sights, ideas, customs, does the 



12 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

English traveller find himself after that brief six-hours' journey from 
Holyhead ! 

There is but one part more of the papers to be looked at ;. and 
that is the most painful of all. In the law-reports of the Tipperary 
special commission sitting at Clonmel, you read that Patrick Byrne is 
brought up for sentence, for the murder of Robert Hall, Esq. : and 
Chief Justice Doherty says, " Patrick Byrne, I will not now recapitu- 
late the circumstances of your enormous crime, but guilty as you are 
of the barbarity of having perpetrated with your hand the foul murder 
of an unoffending old man— barbarous, cowardly and cruel as that act 
was — there lives one more guilty man, and that is he whose diabolical 
mind hatched the foul conspiracy of which you were but the instrument 
and the perpetrator. Whoever that may be, I do not envy him his 
protracted existence. He has sent that aged gentleman, without one 
moment's warning, to face his God ; but he has done more : he has 
brought you, unhappy man, with more deliberation and more cruelty, 
to face your God, with the weight of that man's blood up07t yoii. I 
have now only to pronounce the sentence of the law :" — it is the usual 
sentence, with the usual prayer of the judge, that the Lord may have 
mercy upon the convict's soul. 

Timothy Woods, a young man of twenty years of age, is then tried 
for the murder of Michael Laffan. The Attorney-General states the 
case : — On the 19th of May last, two assassins dragged Laffan from the 
house of Patrick Cummins, fired a pistol-shot at him, and left him 
dead as they thought. Laffan, though mortally wounded, crawled 
away after the fall ; when the assassins, still seeing him give signs of 
life, rushed after him, fractured his skull by blows of a pistol, and left 
him on a dunghill dead. There Laffan's body lay for several hours, 
and nobody dared to totcch it. Laffan's widow found the body there two 
hours after the murder, and an inquest was held on the body as it lay on 
the dunghill. Laffan was driver on the lands of Kilnertin, which were 
formerly held by Pat Cummins, the man who had the charge of the 
lands before Laffa7i was mtwdered ; the latter was dragged out of 
Cummins's house in the presence of a witness who refused to swear to 
the murderers, and was shot in sight of another witness, James Meara, 
who with other men was on the road : when asked whether he cried 
out, or whether he went to assist the deceased, Meara answers, 
'■'■Indeed I did not j we would not interfere— it was no business of 
ours / " 

Six more instances are given of attempts to murder ; on which the 
judge, in passing sentence, comments in the following way : — 



IRISH NEWSPAPERS. 



13 



'^ The Lord Chief Justice addressed the several persons, and said 
— It was now his painful duty to pronounce upon them severally and 
respectively the punishment which the law and the court awarded 
against them for the crimes of which they had been convicted. Those 
crimes were one and all of them of no ordinary enormity — they were 
crimes which, in point of morals, involved the atrocious guilt of 
murder ; and if it had pleased God to spare their souls from the pollu- 
tion of that offence, the court could not still shut its eyes to the fact, 
that although death had not ensued in consequence of the crimes of 
which they had been found guilty, yet it was not owing to their for- 
bearance that such a dreadful crime had not been perpetrated. The 
prisoner, Michael Hughes, had been convicted of firing a gim at a 
person of the name of John Ryan (Luke) ; his horse had been killed, 
and no one could say that the balls were not intended for the prose- 
cutor himself. The prisoner had fired one shot himself, and then 
called on his companion in guilt to discharge another. One of these 
shots killed Ryan's mare, and it was by the mercy of God that the life 
of the prisoner had not become forfeited by his own act. The next 
culprit was John Pound, who was equally guilty of the intended outrage 
perpetrated on the life of an unoffending individual — that individual a 
female, surrounded by her little children, five or six in number — with a 
complete carelessness to the probable consequences, while she and 
her family were going, or had gone, to bed. The contents of a gun 
were discharged through the door, which entered the panel in three 
different places. The deaths resulting from this act might have been 
extensive, but it was not a matter of any moment how many were 
deprived of life. The woman had just risen from her prayers, pre- 
paring herself to sleep under the protection of that arm which would 
shield the child and protect the innocent, when she was wounded. As 
to Cornelius Flynn and Patrick Dwyer, they likewise were the subjects 
of similar imputations and similar observations. There was a very 
slight difference between them, but not such as to amount to any real 
distinction. They had gone upon a common, illegal purpose, to the 
house of a respectable individual, for the purpose of interfering with 
the domestic arrangements he thought fit to make. They had no sort 
of right to interfere with the disposition of a man's affairs ; and what 
would be the consequences if the reverse were to be held ? No impu- 
tation had ever been made upon the gentleman whose house was 
visited, but he was desired to dismiss another, under the pains and 
penalties of death, although that other was not a retained servant, but 
a friend who had come to Mr. Hogan on a visit. Because this visitor 



14 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

used sometimes to inspect the men at work, the lawlesrs edict issued 
that he should be put away. Good God ! to what extent did the 
prisoners and such misguided men intend to carry out their objects ? 
Where Avas their dictation to cease ? are they, and those in a similar 
rank, to take upon themselves to regulate how many and what men a 
farmer should take into his employment ? Were they to be the judges 
whether a servant had discharged his duty to his principal ? or was it 
because a visitor happened to come, that the host should turn him 
away, under the pains and penalties of death? His lordship, after 
adverting to the guilt of the prisoners in this case — the last two persons 
convicted, Thos. Stapleton and Thos. Gleeson— said their case was so 
recently before the public, that it was sufficient to say they were 
morally guilty of what might be considered wilful and dehberate 
murder. Murder was most awful, because it could only be suggested 
by deliberate mahce, and the act of the prisoners was the result of that 
base, malicious, and diabolical disposition. What was the cause of 
resentment against the unfortunate man who had been shot at, and so 
desperately wounded ? Why, he had dared to comply with the wishes 
of a just landlord; and because the landlord, for the benefit of his 
tenantry, proposed that the farms should be squared, those who 
acquiesced in his wishes were to be equally the victims of the assassin. 
What were the facts in this case .^ The two prisoners at the bar, 
Stapleton and Gleeson, sprung out at the man as he v/as leaving work, 
placed him on his knees, and without giving him a moment of pre- 
paration, commenced the work of blood, intending deliberately to 
despatch that unprepared and unoffending individual to eternity. 
What country was it that they lived in, in which such crimes could be 
perpetrated in the open light of day ? It was not necessary that deeds 
of darkness should be shrouded in the clouds of night, for the darkness 
of the deeds themselves was considered a sufficient protection. He 
(the Chief Justice) was not aware of any solitary instance at the 
present commission, to show that the crimes committed were the 
consequences of poverty. Poverty should be no justification, however ; 
it might be some little palliation, but on no trial at this commission did 
it appear that the crime could be attributed to distress. His lordship 
concluded a most impressive address, by sentencing the six prisoners 
called up to transportation for life. 

'' The clock was near midnight as the court was cleared, and the 
whole of the proceedings were solemn and impressive in the extreme. 
The commission is likely to prove extremely beneficial in its results on 
the future tranquillity of the country." 



A WALK THROUGH DUBLIN. 15 

I confess, for my part, to that common cant and sickly sentimen- 
tality, which, thank God ! is felt by a great number of people now-a- 
days, and which leads them to revolt against murder, whether per- 
formed by a ruffian's knife or a hangman's rope : whether accompanied 
with a curse from the thief as he blows his victim's brains out, or a 
prayer from my lord on the bench in his wig and black cap. Nay, is 
all the cant and sickly sentimentality on our side, and might not some 
such charge be applied to the admirers of the good old fashion ? 
Long ere this is printed, for instance, Byrne and Woods have been 
hanged : * sent " to face their God," as the Chief Justice says, " with 
the weight of their victim's blood upon them,"— a just observation ; 
and remember that it is we who send thcvu It is true that the 
judge hopes Heaven will have mercy upon their souls ; but are such 
recommendations of particular weight because they come from the 
bench ? Psha ! If we go on killing people without giving them 
time to repent, let us at least give up the cant of praying for their 
souls' salvation. We find a man drowning in a well, shut the lid 
upon him, and heartily pray that he may get out. Sin has hold 
of him, and we stand aloof, and hope that he may escape. Let 
us give up this ceremony of condolence, and be honest, like the 
witness, and say, " Let him save himself or not, it's no business of 
ours." . . . Here a waiter, with a very broad, though insinuating 
accent, says, " Have you done with the Sandthcrs, sir 1 there's a gentle 
man waiting for't these two hours." And so he carries off that 
strange picture of pleasure and pain, trade, theatres, schools, courts, 
churches, life and death, in Ireland, which a man may buy for a four- 
penny-piece. 



The papers being read, it became my duty to discover the town ; 
and a handsomer town, with fewer people in it, it is impossible to see 
on a summer's day. In the whole wide square of Stephen's Green, 
I think there were not more than two nursery-maids to keep company 
with the statue of George I., who rides on horseback in the middle of 
the garden, the horse having his foot up to trot, as if he wanted to go 
out of town too. Small troops of dirty children (too poor and dirty to 

* The two men were executed pursuant to sentence, and both persisted 
solemnly in denying their guilt. There can be no doubt of it : but it appears 
to be a point of honour with these unhappy men to make no statement which 
may incriminate the witnesses who appeared on their behalf, and on their part 
perjured themselves equally. 



1 6 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

have lodgings at Kingstown) were squatting here and there upon the 
sunshiny steps, the only clients at the thresholds of the professional 
gentlemen whose names figure on brass-plates on the doors. A stand 
of lazy carmen, a policeman or two with clinking boot-heels, a couple 
of moaning beggars leaning against the rails and calling upon the 
Lord, and a fellow with a toy and book stall, where the lives of St. 
Patrick, Robert Emmett, and Lord Edward Fitzgerald may be bought 
for double their value, were all the population of the Green. 

At the door of the Kildare Street Club, I saw eight gentlemen 
looking at two boys playing at leapfrog : at the door of the University 
six lazy porters, in jockey-caps, were sunning themselves on a bench 
— a sort of blue-bottle race ; and the Bank on the opposite side did 
not look as if sixpence-worth of change had been negotiated there 
during the day. There was a lad pretending to sell umbrellas under 
the colonnade, almost the only instance of trade going on ; and I 
began to think of Juan Fernandez, or Cambridge in the long vacation. 
In the courts of the College, scarce the ghost of a gyp or the shadow 
of a bed-maker. 

In spite of the solitude, the square of the College is a fine sight : 

a large ground, surrounded by buildings of various ages and styles, 

but comfortable, handsome, and in good repair ; a modern row of 

rooms ; a row that has been Elizabethan once ; a hall and senate - 

house, facing each other, of the style of Georgd I. ; and a noble 

library, with a range of many windows, and a fine manly, simple 

fagade of cut stone. The Mbrary was shut. The librarian, I suppose, 

is at the seaside ; and the only part of the establishment which I 

could see was the museum, to which one of the jockey-capped 

porters conducted me, up a wide, dismal staircase, (adorned with an 

. old pair of jack-boots, a dusty canoe or two, a few helmets, and a 

South Sea Islander's armour,) which passes through a hall hung 

round with cobwebs (with which the blue-bottles are too wise to 

meddle), into an old mouldy room, filled with dingy glass-cases, 

under which the articles of curiosity or science w^ere partially visible. 

In the middle was a very seedy camelopard (the word has grown to 

be Enghsh by this time), the straw splitting through his tight old 

skin and the black cobbler's-wax stuffing the dim orifices of his 

eyes. Other beasts formed a pleasing group around him, not so tall, 

but equally mouldy and old. The porter took me round to the 

cases, and told me a great number of fibs concerning their contents : 

there was the harp of Brian Boru, and the sword of some one else, 

and other cheap old gimcracks with their corollary of lies. The 



A WALK THROUGH DUBLIN. 17 

place would have been a disgrace to Don Saltero. I was quite glad 
to walk out of it, and down the dirty staircase again : about the 
ornaments of which the jockey-capped gyp had more figments to 
tell ; an atrocious one (I forget what) relative to the pair of boots ; 
near which — a fine specimen of collegiate taste— were the shoes of 
Mr. O'Brien, the Irish giant. If the collection is worth preserving, — 
and indeed the mineralogical specimens look quite as awful as those 
in the British Museum, — one thing is clear, that the rooms are worth 
sweeping. A pail of water costs nothing, a scrubbing-brush not much, 
and a charwoman might be hired for a trifle, to keep the room in a 
decent state of cleanhness. 

Among the curiosities is a mask of the Dean — not the scoffer 
and giber, not the fiery politician, nor the courtier of St. John and 
Harley, equally ready with servility and scorn ; but the poor old 
man, whose great intellect had deserted him, and who died old, wild, 
and sad. The tall forehead is fallen away in a ruin, the mouth has 
settled in a hideous, vacant smile. Well, it was a mercy for Stella 
that she died first : it was better that she should be killed by his 
unkindness than by the sight of his misery ; which, to such a gentle 
heart as that, would have been harder still to bear. 

The Bank, and other public buildings of Dublin, are justly famous. 
In the former may still be seen the room which was the House of 
Lords formerly, and where the Bank directors now sit, under a clean 
marble image of George III. The House of Commons has disappeared, 
for the accommodation of clerks and cashiers. The interior is light, 
splendid, airy, well-furnished, and the outside of the building not less 
so. The Exchange, hard by, is an equally magnificent structure; 
but the genius of commerce has deserted it, for all its architectural 
beauty. There was nobody inside when I entered but a pert statue of 
George III. in a Roman toga, simpering and turning out his toes ; 
and two dirty children playing, whose hoop-sticks caused great 
clattering echoes under the vacant sounding dome. The neighbour- 
hood is not cheerful, and has a dingy, poverty-stricken look. 

Walking towards the river, you have on either side of you, at 
Carlisle Bridge, a very brilliant and beautiful prospect : the Four 
Courts and their dome to the left, the Custom House and its dome to 
the right ; and in this direction seaward, a considerable number of 
vessels are moored, and the quays are black and busy with the cargoes 
discharged from ships. Seamen cheering, herring-women bawling, 
coal-carts loading — the scene is animated and lively. Yonder is the 
famous Corn Exchange ; but the Lord Mayor is attending to his 



1 8 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

duties in Parliament, and little of note is going on. I had just passed 
his lordship's mansion in Dawson Street,— a queer old dirty brick 
house, with dumpy urns at each extremity, and looking as if a storey 
of it had been cut off— a rasee-house. Close at hand, and peering 
over a paling, is a statue of our blessed sovereign George II. How 
absurd these pompous images look, of defunct majesties, for whom no 
breathing soul cares a halfpenny ! It is not so with the effigy of 
William III., who has done something to merit a statue. At this 
minute the Lord Mayor has William's effigy under a canvas, and is 
painting him of a bright green, picked out with yellow — his lordship's 
own livery. 

The view along the quays to the Four Courts has no small resem- 
blance to a view along the quays at Paris, though not so lively as are 
even those quiet walks. The vessels do not come above-bridge, and the 
marine population remains constant about them, and about numerous 
dirty liquor-shops, eating-houses, and marine-store estabhshments, 
which are kept for their accommodation along the quay. As far as 
you can see, the shining Liffey flows away eastward, hastening (like 
the rest of the inhabitants of Dublin) to the sea. 

In front of Carlisle Bridge, and not in the least crowded, though in 
the midst of Sackville Street, stands Nelson upon a stone pillar. The 
Post Office is on his right hand (only it is cut off) ; and on his left, 
" Gresham's " and the " Imperial Hotel." Of the latter let me say 
(from subsequent experience) that it is ornamented by a cook who 
could dress a dinner by the side of M. Borel or M. Soyer. Would 
there were more such artists in this ill-fated country ! The street is 
exceedingly broad and handsome ; the shops at the commencement, 
rich and spacious ; but in Upper Sackville Street, which closes with 
the pretty building and gardens of the Rotunda, the appearance of 
wealth begins to fade somewhat, and the houses look as if they had 
seen better days. Even in this, the great street of the town, there is 
scarcely any one, and it is as vacant and listless as Pall Mall in 
October. In one of the streets off Sackville Street, is the house and 
exhibition of the Irish Academy, which I went to see, as it was posi- 
tively to close at the end of the week. While I was there, two other 
people came in ; and we had, besides, the money-taker and a porter, 
to whom the former was reading, out of a newspaper, those Tipperary 
murders which were mentioned in a former page. The echo took up 
the theme, and hummed it gloomily through the vacant place. 

The drawings and reputation of Mr. Burton are well known in 
England : his pieces were the most admired in the collection. The 



A WALK THROUGH DUBLIN. 



19 



best draughtsman is an imitator of Maclise, Mr. Bridgeman, whose 
pictures are full of vigorous drawing, and remarkable too for their 
grace. I gave my catalogue to the two young ladies before mentioned, 
and have forgotten the names of other artists of merit, whose works 
decked the walls of the little gallery. Here, as in London, the Art 
Union is making a stir ; and several of the pieces were marked as the 
property of members of that body. The possession of some of these 
one would not be inclined to covet ; but it is pleasant to see that 
people begin to buy pictures at all, and there will be no lack of artists 
presently, in a country where nature is so beautiful, and genius so 
plenty. In speaking of the fine arts and of views of Dublin, it may 
be said that Mr. Petrie's designs for Curry's Guide-book of the City 
are exceedingly beautiful, and, above all, trustworthy : no common 
quality in a descriptive artist at present. 

Having a couple of letters of introduction to leave, I had the 
pleasure to find the blinds down at one house, and the window in papers 
at another; and at each place the knock was answered in that leisurely 
way, by one of those dingy female lieutenants who have no need to tell 
you that families are out of town. So the solitude became very painful, 
and I thought I would go back and talk to the waiter at the " Shel- 
burne," the only man in the whole kingdom that I knew. I had been 
accommodated with a queer little room, and dressing-room on the 
ground floor, looking towards the Green : a black-faced, good-humoured 
chamber-maid had promised to perform a deal of scouring which was 
evidently necessary, (a fact she might have observed for six months 
back, only she is no doubt of an absent turn,) and when I came back 
from the w^alk, I saw the little room was evidently enjoying itself in 
the sunshine, for it had opened its window, and was taking a breath of 
fresh air, as it looked out upon the Green. Here is a portrait of the 
little window. 




20 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

As I came up to it in the street, its appearance made me burst out 
laughing, very much to the surprise of a ragged cluster of idlers lolling 
upon the steps next door ; and I have drawn it here, not because it is 
a particularly picturesque or rare kind of window, but because, as I 
fancy, there is a sort of rnoral in it. You don't see such windows 
commonly in respectable English inns — windows leaning gracefully 
upon hearth-brooms for support. Look out of that window without 
the hearth-broom and it would cut your head off : how the beggars 
would start that are always sitting on the steps next door! Is it 
prejudice that makes one prefer the English window, that rehes on its 
own ropes and ballast (or lead if you like), and does not need to be 
propped by any foreign aid ? or is this only a solitary instance of the 
kind, and are there no other specimens in Ireland of the careless, 
dangerous, extravagant hearth-broom system ? 

In the midst of these reflections (which might have been carried 
much farther, for a person with an allegorical turn might examine the 
entire country through this window), a most wonderful cab, with an 
immense prancing cab-horse, was seen to stop at the door of the 
hotel, and Pat the waiter tumbling into the room swiftly with a card in 
his hand, says, " Sir, the gentleman of this card is waiting for you at 
the door." Mon dieu ! it was an invitation to dinner ! and I almost 
leapt into the arms of the man in the cab — so delightful was it to find 
a friend in a place where, a moment before, I had been as lonely as 
Robinson Crusoe. 

The only drawback, perhaps, to pure happiness, when riding in 
such a gorgeous equipage as this, was that we could not drive up 
Regent Street, and meet a few creditors, or acquaintances at least. 
However, Pat, I thought, was exceedingly awe-stricken by my disap- 
pearance in this vehicle ; which had evidently, too, a considerable 
effect upon some other waiters at the " Shelburne," with whom I was 
not as yet so familiar. The mouldy camelopard at the Trinity College 
*' Musayum " was scarcely taller than the bay-horse in the cab ; the 
groom behind was of a corresponding smallness. The cab was of 
a lovely olive-green, picked out with white, on high springs and 
enormous wheels, which, big as they were, scarcely seemed to touch 
the earth. The little tiger swung gracefully up and down, holding on 
by the hood, which was of the material of which the most precious 
and polished boots are made. As for the linuig — but here we come 
too near the sanctity of private life ; suffice that there was a kind 
friend inside, who (though by no means of the fairy sort) was as 
welcome as any fairy in the finest chariot. W had seen me landing 



A HOSPITABLE RECEPTION. 21 

from the packet that morning, and was the very man who in London, 
a month previous, had recommended me to the " Shelbume." These 
facts are not of much consequence to the pubhc, to be sure, except that 
an explanation was necessary of the miraculous appearance of the cab 
and horse. 

Our course, as may be imagined, was towards the seaside ; for 
whither else should an Irishman at this season go ? Not far from 
Kingstown is a house devoted to the purpose of festivity : it is called 
Salt Hill, stands upon a rising ground, commanding a fine view of the 
bay and the railroad, and is kept by persons bearing the celebrated 
name of Lovegrove. It is in fact a sea-Greenwich, and though 
there are no marine whitebait, other fishes are to be had in plenty, 
and especially the famous Bray trout, which does not ill deserve its 
reputation. 

Here we met three young men, who may be called by the names 
of their several counties — Mr. Galway, Mr. Roscommon, and Mr. Clare ; 
and it seemed that I was to complain of solitude no longer : for one 
straightway invited me to his county, where was the finest salmon-fishing 
m the world ; another said he would drive me through the county 
Kerry in his four-in-hand drag ; and the third had some propositions 
of sport equally hospitable. As for going down to some races, on the 
Curragh of Kildare I think, which were to be held on the next and the 
three followmg days, there seemed to be no question about that. That 
a man should nuss a race within forty miles, seemed to be a point 
never contemplated by these jovial sporting fellows. 

Strolling about in the neighbourhood before dinner, we went down 
to the seashore, and to some caves which had lately been discovered 
there ; and two Irish ladies, who were standing at the entrance of one 
of them, permitted me to take the following portraits, which were 
pronounced to be pretty accurate. 

They said they had not acquiesced in the general Temperance 
movement that had taken place throughout the country ; and, indeed, 
if the truth must be known, it was only under promise of a glass of 
whisky apiece that their modesty could be so far overcome as to 
permit them to sit for their portraits. By the time they were done, a 
crowd of both sexes had gathered round, and expressed themselves 
quite ready to sit upon the same terms. But though there was great 
variety in their countenances, there was not much beauty ; and besides, 
dinner was by this time ready, which has at certain periods a charm 
even greater than art. 

The bay, which had been veiled in mist and grey in the morning 



22 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



was now shining under the most beautiful clear sky, which presently 
became rich with a thousand crorgeous hues of sunset. The view was 




^ -^^r^ 



as smiling and delightful a one as can be conceived, — just such a one 
as should be seen a travcrs a good dinner ; with no fatiguing sublimity 
or awful beauty in it, but brisk, brilliant, sunny, enlivening. In fact, 
in placing his banqueting-house here, Mr. Lovegrove had, as usual, a 
brilliant idea. You must not have too much view, or a severe one, to 
give a relish to a good dinner ; nor too much music, nor too quick, 
nor too slow, nor too loud. Any reader who has dined at a table-dliote 
in Germany will know the annoyance of this : a set of musicians 
immediately at your back will sometimes play you a melancholy 
polonaise ; and a man with a good ear must perforce eat in time, and 



A DINNER AT LOVEGROVE'S. 23 

your soup is quite cold before it is swallowed. Then, all of a sudden, 
crash goes a brisk gallop ! and you are obliged to gulp your victuals 
at the rate of ten miles an hour. And in respect of conversation 
during a good dinner, the same rules of propriety should be consulted. 
Deep and sublime talk is as improper as sublime prospects. Dante 
and champagne (I was going to say Milton and oysters, but that is a 
pun) are quite unfit themes of dinner-talk. Let it be light, brisk, not 
oppressive to the brain. Our conversation was, I recollect, just the 
thing. We talked about the last Derby the whole time, and the state 
of the odds for the St. Leger ; nor was the Ascot Cup forgotten ; and 
a bet or two was gaily booked. 

Meanwhile the sky, which had been blue and then red, assumed, 
towards the horizon, as the red was sinking under it, a gentle, delicate 
cast of green. Howth Hill became of a darker purple, and the sails 
of the boats rather dim. The sea grew deeper and deeper in colour. 
The lamps at the railroad dotted the line with fire; and the light- 
houses of the bay began to flame. The trains to and from the city 
rushed flashing and hissing by. In a word, everybody said it was 
time to light a cigar ; which was done, the conversation about the 
Derby still continuing. 

'•Put out that candle," said Roscommon to Clare. This the 
latter instantly did by flinging the taper out of the window upon the 
lawn, which is a thoroughfare ; and where a great laugh arose among 
half a score of beggar-boys, who had been under the window for some 
time past, repeatedly requesting the company to throw out sixpence 
between them. 

Two other sporting young fellows had now joined the company ; 
and as by this time claret began to have rather a mawkish taste, 
whisky-and-water was ordered, which was drunk upon the perron 
before the house, whither the whole party adjourned, and where for 
many hours we delightfully tossed for sixpences— a noble and fasci- 
nating sport. Nor would these remarkable events have been narrated, 
had I not received express permission from the gentlemen of the 
party to record all that was said and done. Who knows but, a thou- 
sand years hence, some antiquary or historian may find a moral in 
this description of the amusement of the British youth at the present 
enlightened time? 

HOT LOBSTER. 

P.S.— You take a lobster, about three feet long if possible, 
remove the shell, cut or break the flesh of the fish in pieces not too 



24 ' THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

small. Some one else meanwhile makes a mixture of mustard, 
vinegar, catsup, and lots of cayenne pepper. You produce a machine 
called a dcspatcher, which has a spirit-lamp under it that is usually 
illuminated with whisky. The lobster, the sauce, and near half a 
pound of butter are placed in the despatcher, which is immediately 
closed. When boiling, the mixture is stirred up, the lobster being 
sure to heave about in the pan in a convulsive manner, while it emits 
a remarkably rich and agreeable odour through the apartment. 
A glass and a half of sherry is now thrown into the pan, and the 
contents served out hot, and eaten by the company. Porter is 
commonly drunk, and whisky-punch afterwards, and the dish is fit for 
an emperor. 

N.B. — You are recommended not to hurry yourself in getting up 
the next morning, and may take soda-water with advantage. — Pro- 
batiim est. 



DUBLIN TO NAAS. 



25 



CHAPTER II. 

A COUNTRY-HOUSE IN KILDARE— SKETCHES OF AN IRISH 
FAMILY AND FARM. 



T had been settled among 
my friends, I don't know for 
what particular reason, that 
the Agricultural Show at 
Cork was an exhibition I 
was specially bound to see. 
When, therefore, a gentle- 
man to whom I had brought 
a letter of introduction kindly 
offered me a seat in his 
carriage, which was to travel 
by shoit days' journeys to 
that city, I took an abrupt 
farewell of Pat the waiter, 
and some other friends in 
Dublin : proposing to renew 
our acquaintance, however, 
upon some future day. 
We started then one fine afternoon en the road from Dublin to 
Naas, which is the main southern road from the capital to Munster, 
and met, in the course of the ride of a score of miles, a dozen of 
coaches very heavily loaded, and bringing passengers to the city. The 
exit from Dublin this way is not much more elegant than the outlet 
by way of Kingstown : for though the great branches of the city appear 
flourishing enough as yet, the small outer ones are in a sad state of decay. 
Houses drop off here and there, and dwindle wofully in size ; we are 
got into the back-premises of the seemingly prosperous place, and it 
looks miserable, careless, and deserted. We passed through a street 
which was thriving once, but has fallen since into a sort of decay, 
to judge outwardly,— St. Thomas' Street. Emmett was hanged in the 
midst of it. Ard on pursuing the line of street, and crossing the 




26 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

Great Canal, you come presently to a line tall square building in the 
outskirts of the town, which is no more nor less than Kilmainham 
Gaol, or Castle. Poor Emmett is the Irish darhng still — his history 
is on every book-stall in the city, and yonder trim-looking brick gaol 
a spot where Irishmen may go and pray. Many a martyr of theirs 
has appeared and died in front of it, — found guilty of " wearing of 
the green." 

There must be a fine view from the gaol windows, for we presently 
come to a great stretch of brilliant green country, leaving the Dublin 
hills lying to the left, picturesque in their outline, and of wonderful 
colour. It seems to me to be quite a different colour to that in England 
— different-shaped clouds — different shadows and lights. The country 
is well tilled, well peopled ; the hay-harvest on the ground, and the 
people taking advantage of the sunshine to gather it in ; but, in spite 
of everything, — green meadows, white villages and sunshine, — the 
place has a sort of sadness in the look of it. 

The first town we passed, as appears by reference to the Guide- 
book, is the Httle town of Rathcoole; but in the space of three days 
Rathcoole has disappeared from my memory, with the exception of 
a little low building which the village contains, and where are the 
quarters of the Irish constabulary. Nothing can be finer than the 
trim, orderly, and soldierlike appearance of this splendid corps of 
men. 

One has glimpses all along the road of numerous gentlemen's 
places, looking extensive and prosperous, of a few mills by streams 
here and there ; but though the streams run still, the mill-wheels are 
idle for the chief part ; and the road passes more than one long low 
village, looking bare and poor, but neat and whitewashed : it seems 
as if the inhabitants were determined to put a decent look upon their 
poverty. One or two villages there were evidently appertaining to 
gentlemen's seats ; these are smart enough, especially that of Johns- 
town, near Lord Mayo's fine domain, where the houses are of the 
Gothic sort, with pretty porches, creepers, and railings. Noble purple 
hills to the left and right keep up, as it were, an accompaniment to 
the road. 

As for the town of Naas, the first after Dublin that I have seen, 
what can be said of it but that it looks poor, mean, and yet somehow 
cheerful.? There was a little bustle in the small shops, a few cars 
were jingling along the broadest street of the town — some sort of 
dandies and military individuals were lolling about right and left ; and 
I saw a fine court-house, where the assizes of Kildare county are held. 



FIRST SYMPTOMS OF WANT. 27 

But by far the finest, and I think the most extensive edifice in 
Naas, was a haystack in the inn-yard, the proprietor of which did 
net fail to make me remark its size and splendour. It was of such 
dimensions as to strike a cockney with respect and pleasure ; and 
here standing just as the new crops were coming in, told a tale of 
opulent thrift and good husbandry. Are there many more such hay- 
stacks, I wonder, in Ireland? The crops along the road seemed 
healthy, though rather light : wheat and oats plenty, and especially 
flourishing ; hay and clover not so good ; and turnips (let the im- 
portant remark be taken at its full value) almost entirely wanting. 

The little town, as they call it, of Kilcullen, tumbles down a hill 
and struggles up another ; the two being here picturesquely divided 
by the Liffey, over which goes an antique bridge. It boasts, more- 
over, of a portion of an abbey wall, and a piece of round tower, both 
on the hill summit, and to be seen (says the Guide-book) for many 
miles round. Here we saw the first public evidences of the distress 
of the country. There was no trade in the little place, and but few 
people to be seen, except a crowd round a meal-shop, where meal is 
distributed once a week by the neighbouring gentry. There must 
have been some hundreds of persons waiting about the doors ; women 
for the most part : some of their children were to be found loitering 
about the bridge much farther up the street ; but it was curious to 
note, amongst these undeniably starving people, how healthy their 
looks were. Going a little farther we saw women pulHng weeds and 
nettles in the hedges, on which dismal sustenance the poor creatures 
live, having no bread, no potatoes, no work. Well ! these women did 
not look thinner or more unhealthy than many a well-fed person. A 
company of English lawyers, now, look more cadaverous than these 
starving creatures. 

Stretching away from Kilcullen bridge, for a couple of miles or 
more, near the fine house and plantations of the Latouche family, is 
to be seen a much prettier sight, I think, than the finest park and 
mansion in the world. This is a tract of excessively green land, 
dotted over with brilliant white cottages, each with its couple of trim 
acres of garden, where you see thick potato-ridges covered with 
blossom, great blue plots of comfortable cabbages and such pleasant 
plants of the poor man's garden. Two or three years since, the land 
was a marshy common, which had never since the days of the Deluge 
fed any being bigger than a snipe, and into which the poor people 
descended, draining and cultivating and rescuing the marsh from the 
water, and raising their cabins and setting up their little inclosures of 



28 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

two or three acres upon the land which they had thus created. 
" Many of 'em has passed months in gaol for that,"' said my informant 
(a groom on the back seat of my host's phaeton) : for it appears that 
certain gentlemen in the neighbourhood looked upon the titles of these 
new colonists with some jealousy, and would have been glad to depose 
them ; but there were some better philosophers among the surrounding 
gentry, who advised that instead of discouraging the settlers it would 
be best to help them ; and the consequence has been, that there are 
now two hundred flourishing little homesteads upon this rescued land, 
and as many families in comfort and plenty. 

Just at the confines of this pretty rustic republic, our pleasant 
afternoon's drive ended ; and I must begin this tour with a monstrous 
breach of confidence, by first describing what I saw. 

Well, then, we drove though a neat lodge-gate, with no stone 
lions or supporters, but riding well on its hinges, and looking fresh 
and white ; and passed by a lodge, not Gothic, but decorated with 
flowers and evergreens, with clean windows, and a sound slate roof; 
and then went over a trim road, through a few acres of grass, adorned 
with plenty of young firs and other healthy trees, under which were 
feeding a dozen of fine cows or more. The road led up to a house, 
or rather a congregation of rooms, built seemingly to suit the.owner's 
convenience, and increasing with his increasing wealth, or whim, or 
family. This latter is as plentiful as everything else about the place ; 
and as the arrows increased, the good-natured, lucky father has been 
forced to multiply the quivers. 

First came out a young gentleman, the heir of the house, who, after 
greeting his papa, began examining the horses with much interest ; 
whilst three or four servants, quite neat and well dressed, and, wonder- 
ful to say, without any talking, began to occupy themselves with the 
carriage, the passengers, and the trunks. Meanwhfle, the owner of 
the house had gone into the hall, which is snugly furnished as a 
morning-room, and where one, two, three young ladies came in to 
greet him. The young ladies having concluded their embraces, per- 
formed (as I am bound to say from experience, both m London and 
Pans,) some very appropriate and well-finished curtsies to the strangers 
arriving. And these three young persons were presently succeeded 
by some still younger, who came without any curtsies at all; but, 
bounding and jumping, and shouting out " Papa " at the top of their 
voices, they fell forthwith upon that worthy gentleman's person, taking 
possession this of his knees, that of his arms, that of his whiskers, as 
fancy or taste might dictate. 



A VVATERFORD EPISODE. 29 

" Are there any more of you ?" says he, with perfect good-humour; 
and, in fact, it appeared that there were some more in the nursery, as 
we subsequently had occasion to see. 

Well, this large happy family are lodged in a house than which a 
prettier or more comfortable is not to be seen even in England ; of 
the furniture of which it may be in confidence said, that each article 
is only made to answer one purpose :— thus, that chairs are never 
called upon to exercise the versatility of their genius by propping up 
windows ; that chests of drawers are not obliged to move their 
unwieldy persons in order to act as locks to doors ; that the windows 
are not variegated by paper, or adorned with wafers, as in other places 
which I have seen : in fact, that the place is just as comfortable as a 
place can be. 

And if these comforts and reminiscences of three days' date are 
enlarged upon at some length, the reason is simply this :— this is 
written at what is supposed to be the best inn at one of the best towns 
of Ireland, Waterford. Dinner is just over ; it is assize-week, and the 

tablc-d'hote was surrounded for the chief part by English attorneys 

the cyouncillors (as the bar are pertinaciously called) dining upstairs 
in private. Well, on going to the public room and being about to 

lay down my hat on the sideboard, I was obliged to pause out of 

regard to a fine thick coat of dust which had been kindly left to 
gather for some days past I should think, and which it seemed a 
shame to displace. Yonder is a chair basking quietly in the sun- 
shine ; some round object has evidently reposed upon it (a hat or 
plate probably), for you see a clear circle of black horsehair in the 
middle of the chair and dust all round it. Not one of those dirty 
napkins that the four waiters carry, would wipe away the grime from 
the chair, and take to itself a little dust more ! The people in the 
room are shouting out for the waiters, who cry, " Yes, sir," peevishly 
and don't come ; but stand bawling and jangling, and calling each other 
names, at the sideboard. The dinner is plentiful and nasty— raw 
ducks, raw pease, on a crumpled tablecloth, over which a waiter 
has just spirted a pint of obstreperous cider. The windows are open, 
to give free view of a crowd of old beggar-women, and of a fellow 
playing a cursed Irish pipe. Presently this delectable apartment fills 
with choking peat-smoke ; and on asking what is the cause of this 
agreeable addition to the pleasures of the place, you are told that they 
are lighting a fire in a back-room. 

Why should lighting a fire in a back-room fill a whole enormous 
house with smoke ? Why should four waiters stand and jaw and 



30 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

gesticulate among themselves, instead of waiting on the guests ? Why 
should ducks be raw, and dust lie quiet in places where a hundred 
people pass daily ? All these points make one think very regretfully 

of neat, pleasant, comfortable, prosperous H town, where the 

m6at w^as cooked, and the rooms were clean, and the servants didn't 
talk. Nor need it be said here, that it is as cheap to ha\-e a house 
clean as dirty, and that a raw leg of mutton costs exactly the same 
sum as one cicit a point. And by this moral earnestly hoping that all 

Ireland may profit, let us go back to H , and the sights to be seen 

there. 

There is no need to particularize the chairs and tables any farther, 
nor to say what sort of conversation and claret we had ; nor to set 
down the dishes served at dinner. If an Irish gentleman does not 
give you a more hearty welcome than an Englishman, at least he has 
a more hearty manner of welcoming you; and while the latter reserves 
his fun and humour (if he possess those qualities) for his particular 
friends, the former is ready to laugh and talk his best with all the 
world, and give way entirely to his mood. And it would be a good 
opportunity here for a man who is clever at philosophizing to expound 
various theories upon the modes of hospitality practised in various 
parts of Europe. In a couple of hours' talk, an Englishman will give 
you his notions on trade, politics, the crops : the last run with the 
hounds, or the weather : it requires a long sitting, and a bottle of wine 
at the least, to induce him to laugh cordially, or to speak unreservedly ; 
and if you joke with him before you know him, he will assuredly set 
you down as a low impertinent fellow. In two hours, and over a pipe, 
a German v/ill be quite ready to let loose the easy floodgates of his 
sentiment, and confide to you many of the secrets of his soft heart. In 
two hours a Frenchman will say a hundred and twenty smart, witty, 
brilliant, false things, and will care for you as much then as he would 
if you saw him every day for twenty years — that is, not one single 
straw ; and in two hours an Irishman will have allowed his jovial 
humour to unbutton, and gambolled and frolicked to his heart's content. 
Which of these, putting Mo7isieur out of the question, will stand by 
his friend with the most constancy, and maintain his steady wish to 
serve him ? That is a question which the Englishman (and I think 
with a little of his ordinary cool assumption) is disposed to decide m 
his own favour ; but it is clear that for a stranger the Irish ways are 
the pleasantest, for here he is at once made happy and at home ; or at 
ease rather : for home is a strong word, and implies much more than 
any stranger can expect, or even desire to claim. 



A HOME SCENE. 31 

Nothing could be more delightful to witness than the evident 
affection which the children and parents bore to one another, and the 
cheerfulness and happiness of their family-parties. The father of one 
lad went with a party of his friends and family on a pleasure-party, in 
a handsome coach-and four. The little fellow sat on the coach-box 
and played with the whip very v/istfully for some time : the sun was 
shining, the horses came out in bright harness, with ghstening coats ; 
one of the girls brought a geranium to stick in papa's button-hole, who 
was to drive. But although there was room in the coach, and though 
papa said he should go if he liked, and though the lad longed to go — 
as who wouldn't ? — he jumped off the box, and said he would not go : 
mamma would like him to stop at home and keep his sister company ; 
and so down he went like a hero. Does this story appear trivial to 
any one who reads it 1 If so, he is a pompous fellow, whose opinion is 
not worth the having ; or he has no children of his own ; or he has 
forgotten the day when he was a child himself ; or he has never 
repented of the surly selfishness with which he treated brothers and 
sisters, after the habit of young English gentlemen. 

" That's a list that uncle keeps of his children," said the same young 
fellow, seeing his uncle reading a paper ; and to understand this joke, 
it must be remembered that the children of the gentleman called uncle 
came into the breakfast-room by half-dozens. " That's a ritvi fellow," 
said the eldest of these latter to me, as his father went out of the room, 
evidently thinking his papa was the greatest wit and w^onder in the 
whole w^orld. And a great merit, as it appeared to me, on the part of 
these worthy parents was, that they consented not only to make, but 
to take jokes from their young ones ; nor was the parental authority in 
the least weakened by this kind familiar intercourse. 

A word with regard to the ladies so far. Those I have seen appear 
to the full as well educated and refined, and far more frank and cordial, 
than the generality of the fair creatures on the other side of the 
Channel. I have not heard anything about poetry, to be sure, and in 
only one house have seen an album ; but I have heard some capital 
music, of an excellent family sort — that sort which is used, namely, 
to set young people dancing, which they have done merrily for some 
nights. In respect of drinking, among the gentry teetotalism does not, 
thank heaven ! as yet appear to prevail ; but although the claret has 
been invariably good, there has been no improper use of it.* Let all 

* The only instances of intoxication that I have heard of as yet, have been 
on the part of two " cyouncillors," undeniably drunk and noisy yesterday after 

the bar dinner at Waterford. 



32 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



English be recommended to be very careful of whisky, which ex- 
perience teaches to be a very deleterious drink. Natives say that it is 
wholesome, and may be sometimes seen to use it with impunity ; but 
the whisky-fever is naturally more fatal to strangers than inhabitants 
of the country ; and whereas an Irishman will sometimes imbibe a half- 
dozen tumblers of the poison, two glasses will be often found to cause 
headaches, heartburns, and fevers to a person newly arrived in the 
country. The said whisky is always to be had for the asking, but is not 
produced at the bettermost sort of tables. 

Before setting out on our second day's journey, we had time to 

accompany the well-pleased owner of H town over some of his 

fields and out-premises. Nor can there be a pleasanter sight to owner 

or stranger. Mr. P farms four hundred acres of land about his 

house ; and employs on this estate no less than a hundred and ten 
persons. He says there is full work for every one of them ; and to see 
the elaborate state of cultivation in which the land was, it is easy to 
understand how such an agricultural regiment were employed. The 
estate is like a well-ordered garden : we walked into a huge field of 
potatoes, and the landlord made us remark that there was not a single 
weed between the furrows ; and the whole formed a vast flower-bed of 
a score of acres. Every bit of land up to the hedge-side was fertihsed 
and full of produce : the space left for the plough having afterwards 
been gone over, and yielding its fullest proportion of " fruit." In a 
turnip-field were a score or more of women and children, who were 
marching through the ridges, removing the young plants where two or 
three had grown together, and leaving only the most healthy. Every 
individual root in the field was thus the object of culture ; and the 
owner said that this extreme cultivation answered his purpose, and 
that the employment of all these hands, (the women and children earn 
dd. and M. a day all the year round), which gained him some reputa- 
tion as a philanthropist, brought him profit as a farmer too ; for his 
crops were the best that land could produce. He has further the ad- 
vantage of a large stock for manure, and does everything for the land 
which art can do. 

Here we saw several experiments in manuring : an acre of turnips 
prepared with bone-dust ; another with " Murray's Composition," 
whereof I do not pretend to know the ingredients ; another with a new 
manure called guano. As far as turnips and a first year's crop went, 
the guano carried the day. The plants on the guano acre looked to 
be three weeks in advance of their neighbours, and were extremely 
plentiful and healthy. I went to see this field two months after 



A KILO A RE FARM. 33 

the above passage was written : the guano acre still kept the lead ; 
the bone-dust ran guano very hard ; and composition was clearly- 
distanced. 

Behind the house is a fine village of corn and hayricks, and a street 
of out-buildings, where all the work of the farm is prepared. Here 
were numerous people coming with pails for buttermilk, which the 
good-natured landlord made over to them. A score of men or more 
were busied about the place ; some at a grindstone, others at a forge 
— other fellows busied in the cart-houses and stables, all of which were 
as neatly kept as in the best farm in England. A little further on was 
a flower-garden, a kitchen-garden, a hot-house just building, a kennel 
of fine pointers and setters ; — indeed a noble feature of country neat- 
ness, thrift, and plenty. 

We went into the cottages and gardens of several of Mr. P '3 

labourers, which were all so neat that I could not help fancying they 
were pet cottages erected under the landlord's own superintendence, 
and ornamented to his order. But he declared that it was not so ; 
that the only benefit his labourers got from him was constant work, 
and a house rent-free ; and that the neatness of the gardens and 
dwellings was of their own doing. By making them a present of the 
house, he said, he made them a present of the pig and live stock, with 
which almost every Irish cotter pays his rent, so that each workman 
could have a bit of meat for his support ; — would that all labourers 
in the empire had as much ! With regard to the neatness of the 
houses, the best way to ensure this, he said, was for the master con- 
stantly to visit them — to awaken as much emulation as he could 
amongst the cottagers, so that each should make his place as good as 
his neighbour's— and to take them good-humouredly to task if they 
failed in the requisite care. 

And so this pleasant day's visit ended. A more practical person 
would have seen, no doubt, and understood much more than a mere 
citizen could, whose pursuits have been very different from those noble 
and useful ones here spoken of. But a man has no call to be a judge 
of turnips or live stock, in order to admire such an establishment as 
this, and heartily to appreciate the excellence of it. There are some 
happy organisations in the world which possess the great virtue of 
prosperity. It implies cheerfulness, simplicity, shrewdness, perse- 
verance, honesty, good health. See how, before the good-humoured 
resolution of such characters, ill-luck gives way, and fortune assumes 
their own smiling complexion ! Such men grow rich without driving 
a single hard bargain ; their condition being to make others prosper 

D 



34 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

along with themselves. Thus, his very charity, another informant 
tells me, is one of the causes of my host's good fortune. He might 
have three pounds a year from each of forty cottages, but instead 
prefers a hundred healthy workmen ; or he might have a fourth of the 
number of workmen, and a farm yielding a produce proportionately 
less ; but instead of saving the money of their wages, prefers a farm 
the produce of which, as I have heard from a gentleman whom I take 
to be good authority, is unequalled elsewhere. 

Besides the cottages, we visited a pretty school, where children of 
an exceeding smallness were at their work, — the children of the 
Catholic peasantry. The few Protestants of the district do not attend 
the national-school, nor learn their alphabet or their multiplication- 
table in company with their little Roman Catholic brethren. The 

clergyman, who lives hard by the gate of H town, in his commu 

nication with his parishioners cannot fail to see how much misery is 
relieved and how much good is done by his neighbour ; but though 
the two gentlemen are on good terms, the clergyman will not break 
bread with his Catholic fellow-Christian. There can be no harm, I 
hope, in mentioning this fact, as it is rather a pubhc than a private 
matter ; and, unfortunately, it is only a stranger that is surprised by 
such a circumstance, which is quite familiar to residents of the 
country. There are Catholic inns and Protestant inns in the towns ; 
Catholic coaches and Protestant coaches on the roads ; nay, in the 
North, I have since heard of a High Church coach and a Low Church 
coach adopted by travelling Christians of either party. 




.-^A" IRISH DRAG, 



35 



' CHAPTER III. 

FROM CARLOW TO WATERFORD. 



HE next morning being fixed 
for the commencement of 
our journey towards Water- 
ford, a carriage made its ap- 
pearance in due time before 
the hall-door : an amateur 
stage-coach, with four fine 
horses, that were to carry us 
to Cork. The crew of the 
" drag," for the present, 
consisted of two young 
ladies, and two who will 
not be old, please heaven ! 
for these thirty years ; three 
gentlemen whose collective 
weights might amount to 
fifty-four stone ; and one of 
smaller proportions, being 
as yet only twelve years old : to these were added a couple of grooms 
and a lady's-maid. Subsequently we took in a dozen or so more 
passengers, who did not seem in the slightest degree to inconvenience 
the coach or the horses ; and thus was formed a tolerably numerous 
and merry party. The governor took the reins, with his geranium in 
his button-hole, and the place on the box was quarrelled for without 
ceasing, and taken by turns. 

Our day's journey lay through a country more picturesque, though 
by no means so prosperous and well cultivated, as the district through 
which we had passed on our drive from Dubhn. This trip carried us 
through the county of Carlow and the town of that name : a wretched 
place enough, with a fine court-house, and a couple of fine churches : 
the Protestant church a noble structure, and the Cathohc cathedral 
said to be built after some continental model. The Catholics point to 




36 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

the structure with considerable pride : it was the first, I believe, of the 
many handsome cathedrals for their worship which have been built of 
late years in this country by the noble contributions of the poor man's 
penny, and by the untiring energies and sacrifices of the clergy. 
Bishop Doyle, the founder of the church, has the place of honour 
within it; nor, perhaps, did any Christian pastor ever merit the 
affection of his flock more than that great and high-minded man. He 
was the best champion the Catholic Church and cause ever had in 
Ireland; in learning, and admirable kindness and virtue, the best 
example to the clergy of his religion : and if the country is now filled 
with schools, where the humblest peasant in it can have the benefit of 
a liberal and wholesome education, it owes this great boon mainly to 
his noble exertions, and to the spirit which they awakened. 

As for the architecture of the cathedral, I do not fancy a pro- 
fessional man would find much to praise in it ; it seems to me over- 
loaded with ornaments, nor were its innumerable spires and pinnacles 
the more pleasing to the eye because some of them were out of the 
perpendicular. The interior is quite plain, not to say bare and 
unfinished. Many of the chapels in the country that I have since 
seen are in a similar condition ; for when the walls are once raised, 
'the enthusiasm of the subscribers to the building seems somewhat 
characteristically to grow cool, and you enter at a porch that would 
suit a palace, with an interior scarcely more decorated than a barn. 
A wide large floor, some confession-boxes against the blank walls here 
and there, with some humble pictures at the 'stations," and the 
statue, under a mean canopy of red woollen stuff, were the chief 
furniture of the cathedral 

The severe homely features of the good bishop were not very 
favourable subjects for Mr. Hogan's chisel ; but a figure of prostrate, 
weeping Ireland, kneeling by the prelate's side, and for whom he is 
imploring protection, has much beauty. In the chapels of Dublin and 
Cork some of this artist's works may be seen, and his countrymen are 
exceedingly proud of him. 

Connected with the Catholic cathedral is a large tumble-down- 
looking divinity college : there are upwards of a hundred students 
here, and the college is licensed to give degrees in arts as well as 
divinity ; at least so the officer of the church said, as he showed us 
the place through the bars of the sacristy-windows, in which apartment 
may be seen sundry crosses, a pastoral letter of Doctor Doyle, and a 
number of ecclesiastical vestments formed of laces, pophns, and 
velvets, handsomely laced with gold. There is a convent by the side 



LEIGHLIN BRIDGE. 37 

of the cathedral, and, of course, a parcel of beggars all about, and 
indeed all over the town, profuse in their prayers and invocations of 
the Lord, and whining flatteries of the persons whom they address. 
One wretched old tottering hag began whining the Lord's Prayer as a 
proof of her sincerity, and blundered in the very midst of it, and left ^ 
us thoroughly disgusted after the very first sentence. 

It was market-day in the town, which is tolerably full of poor- 
looking shops, the streets being thronged with donkey-carts, and 
people eager to barter their small wares. Here and there were 
picture-stalls, with huge hideous-coloured engravings of the Saints ; 
and indeed the objects of barter upon the banks of the clear bright 
river Barrow seemed scarcely to be of more value than the articles 
which change hands, as one reads of, in a town of African huts and 
traders on the banks of the Ouorra. Perhaps the very bustle and 
cheerfulness of the people served only, to a Londoner's eyes, to make 
it look the more miserable. It seems as if they had no 7'ight to be 
eager about such a parcel of wretched rags and trifles as were exposed 
to sale. 

There are some old towers of a castle here, looking finely from 
the river ; and near the town is a grand modern residence belonging 
to Colonel Bruen, with an oak-park on one side of the road, and a 
deer-park on the other. These retainers of the Colonel's lay in their 
rushy-green inclosures, in great numbers and seemingly in flourishing 
condition. 

The road from Carlow to Leighlin Bridge is exceedingly beautiful : 
noble purple hills rising on either side, and the broad silver Barrow 
flowing through rich meadow s of that astonishing verdure which is 
only to be seen in this country. Here and there was a country-house, 
or a tall mill by a stream-side : but the latter buildings were for the 
most part empty, the gaunt windows gaping without glass, and their 
great wheels idle. Leighlin Bridge, lying up and down a hill by the 
river, contains a considerable number of pompous-looking warehouses, 
that looked for the most part to be doing no more business than the 
mills on the Carlow road, but stood by the roadside staring at the 
coach as it were, and basking in the sun, swaggering, idle, insolvent, 
and out-at-elbows. There are one or two very pretty, modest, com- 
fortable-looking country-places about Leighlin Bridge, and on the 
road thence to a miserable village called the Royal Oak, a beggarly 
sort of bustling place. 

Here stands a dilapidated hotel and posting-house : and indeed 
on every road, as yet, I have been astonished at the great movement' 



38 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

and stir ; — the old coaches being invariably crammed, cars jingling 
about equally full, and no want of gentlemen's carriages to exercise 
the horses of the " Royal Oak " and similar establishments. In the 
time of the rebellion, the landlord of this "Royal Oak," a great 
character in those parts, was a fierce United Irishman. One day it 
happened that Sir John Anderson came to the inn, and was eager for 
horses on. The landlord, who knew Sir John to be a Tory, vowed 
and swore he had no horses ; that the judges had the last going to 
Kilkenny ; that the yeomanry had carried off the best of them ; that 
he could not give a horse for love or money. "Poor Lord Edward ! " 
said Sir John, sinking down in a chair, and clasping his hands, " my 
poor dear misguided friend, and must you die for the loss of a few 
hours and the want of a pair of horses ? " 

« Lord What ? " says the landlord. 

" Lord Edward Fitzgerald," rephed Sir John. " The Government 
lias seized his papers, and got scent of his hiding-place. If I can't 
get to him before two hours, Sirr will have him." 

" My dear Sir John," cried the landlord, " it's not two horses but 
it's eight ril give you, and may the judges go hang for me I Here, 
Larry ! Tim ! First and second pair for Sir John Anderson ; and 
long life to you, Sir John, and the Lord reward you for your good 
deed this day ! " 

Sir John, my informant told me, had invented this predicament 
of Lord Edward's in order to get the horses ; and by way of cor- 
roborating the whole story, pointed out an old chaise which stood at 
the inn-door with its window broken, a great crevice in the panel, some 
little wretches crawling underneath the wheels, and two huge black- 
guards lolhng against the pole. " And that," says he, " is no doubt 
the very postchaise Sir John Anderson had." It certainly looked 
ancient enough. 

Of course, as we stopped for a moment in the place, troops of 
slatternly, ruffianly-looking fellows assembled round the carriage, dirty 
heads peeped out of all the dirty windows, beggars came forward 
with a joke and a prayer, and troops of children raised their shouts 
and halloos. I confess, with regard to the beggars, that I have never 
yet had the slightest sentiment of compassion for the very oldest or 
dirtiest of them, or been inclined to give them a penny : they come 
crawling round you with lying prayers and loathsome compliments, 
that make the stomach turn ; they do not even disguise that the}- 
are lies ; for, refuse them, .and the wretches turn off with a laugh 
and a joke, a miserable grinning cynicism that creates distrust and 



A COUNTRY-HOUSE. 3^ 

indifference, and must be, one would think, the very best way to close 
the purse, not to open it, for objects so unworthy. 

How do all these people live ? one can't help wondering ; — these 
multifarious vagabonds, without work or workhouse, or means of 
subsistence? The Irish Poor Law Report says that there are twelve 

hundred thousand people in Ireland— a sixth of the population who 

have no means of livelihood but charity, and whom the State, or 
individual members of it, must maintain. How can the State support 
such an enormous burden ; or the twelve hundred thousand be sup- 
ported 1 What a strange history it would be, could one but get it true, 
— that of the manner in which a score of these beggars have main- 
tained themselves for a fortnight past ! 

Soon after quitting the " Royal Oak," our road branches off to the 
hospitable house where our party, consisting of a dozen persons, was 
to be housed and fed for the night. Fancy the look which an English 
gentleman of moderate means would assume, at being called on to 
receive such a company ! A pretty road of a couple of miles, thickly 
grown with ash and oak trees, under which the hats of coach- 
passengers suffered some danger, leads to the house of D . A 

young son of the house, on a white pony, was on the look-out, and 
great cheering and shouting took place among the young people as we 
came in sight. 

Trotting away by the carriage-side, he brought us through a gate 
with a pretty avenue of trees leading to the pleasure-grounds of the 
house — a handsome building commanding noble views of river, 
mountains, and plantations. Our entertainer only rents the place ; 
so I may say, without any imputation against him, that the house was 
by no means so handsome within as without, — not that the want of 
nnish in the interior made our party the less merry, or the host's 
entertainment less hearty and cordial. 

The gentleman who built and owns the house, like many other 
proprietors in Ireland, found his mansion too expensive for his means 
and has relinquished it. I asked what his income might be, and no 
wonder that he was compelled to resign his house ; which a man with 
four times the income in England would scarcely venture to inhabit. 
There were numerous sitting-rooms below ; a large suite of rooms 
above, in which our large party, with their servants, disappeared 
.-.ithout any seeming inconvenience, and which already accommodated 
:i family of at least a dozen persons, and a numerous train of domestics. 
There was a great court-yard surrounded by capital offices, with 
stabling and coach-houses sufficient for a half-dozen of country 



40 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



gentlemen. An English squire of ten thousand a year might hve in 
such a place — the original owner, I am told, had not many more 
hundreds. 

Our host has wisely turned the chief part of the pleasure-ground 
round the house into a farm ; nor did the land lock a bit the worse, 
as I thought, for having rich crops of potatoes growing in place of 
grass, and fine plots of waving wheat and barley. The care, skill, and 
neatness everywhere exhibited, and the immense luxuriance of the 
crops, could not fail to strike even a cockney ; and one of our party, 




a very well-known, practical farmer, told me that there was at least 
five hundred pounds' worth of produce upon the little estate of some 
sixty acres, of which only five-and-twenty were under the plough. 

As at H town, on the previous day, several men and women 

appeared sauntering in the grounds, and as the master came up, asked 
for work, or sixpence, or told a story of want. There are lodge-gates 
at both ends of the demesne ; but it appears the good-natured practice 
of the country admits a beggar as well as any other visitor. To a 
couple our landlord gave money, to another a little job of work ; 
another he sent roughly out of the premises : and I could judge thus 



HANGERS-ON. 41 

what a continual tax upon the Irish gentleman these travelling paupers 
must be, of whom his ground is never free. 

There, loitering about the stables and out-houses, were several 
people who seemed to have acquired a sort of right to be there : 
women and children who had a claim upon the buttermilk ; men 
who did an odd job now and then ; loose hangers-on of the family : 
and in the lodging-houses and inns I have entered, the same sort of 
ragged vassals are to be found ; in a house however poor, you are 
sure to see some poorer dependant who is a stranger, taking a meal 
of potatoes in the kitchen ; a Tim or Mike loitering hard by, ready 
to run on a message, or carry a bag. This is written, for instance, at 
a lodging over a shop at Cork. There sits in the shop a poor old 
fellow quite past work, but who totters up and down stairs to the 
lodgers, and does what little he can for his easily-won bread. There 
is another fellow outside who is sure to make his bow to anybody 
issuing from the lodging, and ask if his honour wants an errand done ? 
Neither class of such dependants exist with us. What housekeeper 
in London is there will feed an old man of seventy that's good for 
nothing, or encourage such a disreputable hanger-on as yonder 
shuffling, smiling cad ? 

Nor did Mr, M 's "irregulars" disappear with the day; for when, 

after a great deal of merriment, and kind, happy dancing and romping 
of young people, the fineness of the night suggested the propriety of 
smoking a certain cigar (it is never more acceptable than at that season)^ 
the young squire voted that we should adjourn to the stables for the 
purpose, where accordingly the cigars were discussed. There were still 
the inevitable half-dozen hangers-on : one came grinning with a 
lantern, all nature being in universal blackness except his grinning face ; 
another ran obsequiously to the stables to show a favourite mare — I 
think it was a mare — though it may have been a mule, and your humble 
servant not much the wiser. The cloths were taken off; the fellows 
with the candles crowded about ; and the young squire bade me admire 
the beauty of her fore-leg, which I did with the greatest possible gravity. 
"Did you ever see such a fore-leg as that in your life?" says the young 
squire, and further discoursed upon the horse's points, the amateur 
grooms joining in chorus. 

There was another young squire of our party, a pleasant gentle- 
manlike young fellow, who danced as prettily as any Frenchman, and 
who had ridden over from a neighbouring house : as I went to bed, the 

two lads were arguing whether young Squire B should go home or 

stay at D that night. There was a bed for him — there was a bed 



42 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

for everybody, it seemed, and a kind welcome too. How different Avas 
all this to the ways of a severe English house \ 

Next morning the whole of our merry party assembled round a long, 
jovial breakfast-table, stored with all sorts of good things ; and the 
biggest and jovialest man of all, who had just come in fresh from a walk 
in the fields, and vowed that he was as hungry as a hunter, and was 
cutting some slices out of an inviting ham on the side-table, suddenly let 
fall his knife and fork with dismay. " Sure, John, don't you know it's 
Friday .^" cried a lady from the table; and back John came with a 
most lugubrious queer look on his jolly face, and fell to work upon 
bread-and-butter^ as resigned as possible, amidst no small laughter, as 
may be well imagined. On this I was bound, as a Protestant, to eat 
a large slice of pork, and discharged that duty nobly, and with much 
self-sacrifice. 

The famous "drag" which had brought us so far, seemed to be as 
hospitable and elastic as the house which we now left, for the coach 
accommodated, inside and out, a considerable party from the house ; 
and we took our road leisurely, in a cloudless, scorching day, towards 
Waterford. The first place we passed through was the little town of 
Gowran, near which is a grand, well-ordered park, belonging to Lord 
Clifden, and where his mother resides,, with whose beautiful face, in 
Lawrence's pictures, every reader must be familiar. The kind English 
lady has done the greatest good in the neighbourhood, it is said, and 
the little town bears marks of her beneficence, in its neatness, prettiness, 
and order. Close by the church there are the ruins of a fine old 
abbey here, and a still finer one a few miles on, at Thomastown, most 
picturesquely situated amidst trees and meadow, on the river Nore. 
The place within, however, is dirty and ruinous — the same wretched 
suburbs, the same squalid congregation of beggarly loungers, that are 
to be seen elsewhere. The monastic ruin is very fine, and the road 
hence to Thomastown rich with varied cultivation and beautiful 
verdure, pretty gentlemen's mansions shining among the trees on 
either side of the way. There was one place along this rich tract that 
looked very strange and ghastly— a huge old pair of gate pillars, 
flanked by a ruinous lodge, and a wide road winding for a mile up a 
hill. There had been a park oncCj but all the trees, were gone ; thistles 
were growing in the yellow sickly land, and rank thin grass on the 
road. Far away you saw in this desolate tract a ruin of a house : 
many a butt of claret has been emptied there, no doubt, and many a 
merry party come out with hound and horn. But what strikes the 
Englishman with wonder is not so much, perhaps, that an owner of 



BALLYHALE. 



43 



the place should have been ruined and a spendthrift, as that the land 
should he there useless ever since. If one is not successful with us 
another man will be, or another will try, at least. Here lies useless 
a great capital of hundreds of acres of land ; barren, where the 
commonest effort might make it productive, and looking as if for a 
quarter of a century past no soul ever looked or cared for it. You 
might travel five hundred miles through England and not see such a 
spectacle. 

A short distance from Thomastown is another abbey ; and presently, 
after passing through the village of Knocktopher, we came to a posting- 
place called Ballyhale, of the moral aspect of which the following sketch 
taken in the place will give a notion. 




A dirty, old, contented, decrepit idler was lolling in the sun at p- 
shop-door, and hundreds of the population of the dirty, old, decrepit; 
contented place were employed in the like way. A dozen of boys 
were playing at pitch-and-toss ; other male and female beggars were 
sitting on a wall looking into a stream ; scores of ragamuffins, of 
course, round the carriage ; and beggars galore at the door of the 
little ale-house or hotel. A gentleman's carriage changed horses as 
we were baiting here. It was a rich sight to see the cattle, and the 
way of starting them : "Halloo ! Yoop hoop !" a dozen ragged 



44 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

ostlers and amateurs running by the side of the miserable old horses, 
the postilion shrieking, yelling, and belabouring them with his whip. 
Down goes one horse among the new-laid stones ; the postilion has 
him up with a cut of the whip and a curse, and takes advantage of the 
start caused by the stumble to get the brute into a gallop, and to go 
down the hill. " I know it for a fact," a gentleman of our party says, 
" that no horses ever got out of Ballyhale without an accident of some 
kind." 

" Will your honour like to come and see a big pig ? '' here asked 
a man of the above gentleman, well known as a great farmer and 
breeder. We all went to see the big pig, not very fat as yet, but, 
upon my word, it is as big as a pony. The country round is, it 
appears, famous for the breeding of such, especially a district called 
the Welsh mountains, through which we had to pass on our road to 
Waterford. 

This is a curious country to see, and has curious inhabitants : for 
twenty miles there is no gentleman's house : gentlemen dare not live 
there. The place was originally tenanted by a clan of Welshes ; hence 
its name ; and they maintain themselves in their occupancy of the 
farms in Tipperary fashion, by simply putting a ball into the body of 
any man who would come to take a farm over any one of them. Some 
of the crops in the fields of the Welsh country seemed very good, and 
the fields well tilled ; but it is common to see, by the side of one field 
that is well cultivated, another that is absolutely barren ; and the 
whole tract Is extremely wretched. Appropriate histories and re- 
miniscences accompany the traveller : at a chapel near IVIullinavat is 
the spot where sixteen policemen were murdered in the tithe-campaign ; 
farther on you come to a hmekiln, where the guard of a mail-coach 
was seized and roasted alive. I saw here the first hedge-school I have 
seen : a crowd of half-savage-looking lads and girls looked up from 
their studies in the ditch, their college or lecture-room being in a mud 
cabin hard by. 

And likewise, in the midst of this wild tract, a fellow met us who 
was trudging the road with a fish-basket over his shoulder, and who 
stopped the coach, hailing two of the gentlemen in it by name, both 
of whom seemed to be much amused by his humour. He was a 
handsome rogue, a poacher, or salmon-taker, by profession, and 
presently poured out such a flood of oaths, and made such a mon- 
strous display of grinning wit and blackguardism, as I have never 
heard equalled by the best Billingsgate practitioner, and as it would 
be more than useless to attempt to describe. Blessings, jokes, and 



A VOLUBLE ROGUE. 



45 



curses trolled off the rascal's lips with a volubility which caused his 
Irish audience to shout with laughter, but which were quite beyond a 
cockney. It was a humour so purely national as to be understood 
by none but natives, I should think. I recollect the same feeling of 
perplexity while sitting, the only Englishman, in a company of jocular 
Scotchmen. They bandied about puns, jokes, imitations, and ap- 
plauded with shrieks of laughter what, I confess, appeared to me the 
inost abominable dulness ; nor was the salmon-taker's jocularity any 
better. I think it rather served to frighten than to amuse ; and I am 
not sure but that I looked out for a band of jocular cut-throats of this 
sort to come up at a given guffaw, and playfully rob us all round. 
However, he went away quite peaceably, calling down for the party the 
benediction of a great number of saints, who must have been somewhat 
ashamed to be addressed by such a rascal. 

Presently we caught sight of the valley through which the Suir flows, 
and descended the hill towards it, and went over the thundering old 
wooden bridge to Waterford. 



46- 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



CHAPTER IV. 

FROM WATERFORD TO CORK. 



HE view of the town from 
the bridge and the heights 
above it is very imposing ; 
as is the river both ways. 
\>ry large vessels sail up 
almost to the doors of the 
houses, and the quays are 
flanked by tall red ware- 
houses, that look at a little 
distance as if a world of 
business might be doing 
within them. But as you 
get into the place, not a 
soul is there to greet you, 
except the usual society of 
beggars, and a sailor or 
two, or a green-coated 
policeman sauntering down 
the broad pavement. We 
drove up to the " Coach Inn," a huge, handsome, dirty building, of 
which the discomforts have been pathetically described elsewhere. The 
landlord is a gentleman and considerable horse-proprietor, and though 
a perfectly well-bred, active, and intelligent man, far too much of a 
gentleman to play the host well : at least as an Englishman understands 
that character. 

Opposite the town is a tower of questionable antiquity and 
undeniable ugliness ; for though the inscription says it was built in 
the year one thousand and something, the same document adds that 
it was rebuilt in 1819 — to either of which dates the traveller is thus 
welcomed. The quays stretch for a considerable distance along the 
river, poor, patched-windowed, mouldy-looking shops forming the 
basement-storey of most of the houses. We went into one, a jeweller's. 
to make a purchase — it might have been of a gold watch for anything 




WATERFORD. 



47 



the owner knew; but he was talking with a friend in his back-parlour, 
gave us a look as we entered, allowed us to stand some minutes in 
the empty shop, and at length to walk out without being served. In 
another shop a boy was lolling behind a counter, but could not say 
whether the articles we wanted w^ere to be had ; turned out a heap of 
drawers, and could not find them ; and finally went for the master, who 
could not come. True commercial independence, and an easy vray 
enough of life. 

In one of the streets leading from the quay is a large, dingy Catholic 
chapel, of some pretensions within ; but, as usual, there had been a 
failure for w^ant of money, and the front of the chapel was unfinished, 
presenting the butt-end of a portico, and walls on which the stone 
coating was to be laid. But a much finer ornament to the church than 
any of the questionable gewgaws which adorned the ceiling was the 
piety, stern, simple, and unaffected, of the people within. Their whole 
soul seemed to be in their prayers, as rich and poor knelt indifferently 
on the flags. There is of course an episcopal cathedral, well and neatly 
kept, and a handsome Bishop's palace : near it was a convent of nuns, 
and a little chapel-bell clinking melodiously. I was prepared to fancy 
something romantic of the place ; but as we passed the convent gate, 
a shoeless slattern of a maid opened the door — the most dirty and un- 
poetical of housemaids. 

Assizes were held in the town, and we ascended to the court-house 
through a steep street, a sort of rag-fair, but more villanous and 
miserable than any rag-fair in St. Giles's : the houses and stock of the 
Seven Dials look as if they belonged to capitalists when compared v/ith 
the scarecrow wretchedness of the goods here hung out for sale. 
Who wanted to buy such things? I wondered. One would have 
thought that the most part of the articles had passed the possibility of 
barter for money, even out of the reach of the half-farthings coined of 
late. All the street was lined with wretched hucksters and their 
merchandise of gooseberries, green apples, children's dirty cakes, 
cheap crockeries, brushes, , and tinware; among which objects the 
people were swarming about busily. 

Before the court is a wide street, where a similar market was held, 
with a vast number of donkey-carts urged hither and thither, and 
great shrieking, chattering, and bustle. It is five hundred years ago 
since a poet who accompanied Richard II. in his voyage hither spoke 
of " Wat7'efordc ou moult vilaine et orde y sont la gcnter They don't 
seem to be much changed now, but remain faithful to their ancient 
habits. 



48 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



About the court-house swarms of beggars of course were collected, 
varied by personages of a better sort : grey-coated farmers, and 
women with their picturesque blue cloaks, who had trudged in from 
the country probably. The court-house is as beggarly and ruinous as 
the rest of the neighbourhood ; smart-looking policemen kept order 
about it, and looked very hard at me as I ventured to take a sketch. 

The figures as I saw them 
were accurately .,^1 so dis- 
posed. The man in the dock, 
the pohceman seated easily 
above him, the woman looking 
down from a gallery. The 
man was accused of stealing a 
sack of wool, and, having no 
counsel, made for himself as 
adroit a defence as any one of 
the counsellors (they are with- 
out robes or wigs here, by the 
way,) could have made for him. 
He had been seen examining 
a certain sack of wool in a 
coffee-shop at Dungarvan, and 
next day was caught sight of 
in Waterford Market, standing 
under an archway from the 
rain, with the sack by his side. 
" Wasn't there twenty other 
people under the arch?" said 
he to a \vitness, a noble-looking 
beautiful girl — the girl was 
obliged to own there were. 
" Did you see me touch the 
wool, or stand nearer to it 
than a dozen of the dacent 
people there?" and the girl 
confessed she had not. "And 
this it is, my lord," says he to 
the bench ; " they attack me because I am poor and ragged, but they 
never think of charging the crime on a rich farmer." 

But alas for the defence ! another witness saw the prisoner with 
his legs round the sack, and being about to charge him with the theft, 




THE COURT HOUSE. 49 

the prisoner fled into the arms of a policeman, to whom his first words 
were, " I know nothing about the sack." So, as the sack had been 
stolen, as he had been seen handling it four minutes before it was 
stolen, and holding it for sale the day after, it was concluded that 
Patrick Malony had stolen the sack, and he was accommodated with 
eighteen months accordingly. 

In another case we had a woman and her child on the table ; and 
others followed, in the judgment of which it was impossible not to 
admire the extreme leniency, acuteness, and sensibility of the judge 
presiding. Chief Justice Pennefather : — the man against whom all the 
Liberals in Ireland, and every one else who has read his charge too, 
must be angry, for the ferocity of his charge against a Belfast news- 
paper editor. It seems as if no parties here will be dispassionate when 




they get to a party question, and that natural kindness has no claim 
when Whig and Tory come into collision. 

The witness is here placed on a table instead of a witness-box ; 
nor was there much farther peculiarity to remark, except in the dirt 
of the court, the absence of the barristerial wig and gown, and the 
great coolness with which a fellow who seemed a sort of clerk, usher, 
and Irish interpreter to the court, recommended a prisoner, who was 
making rather a long defence, to be quiet. I asked him why the man 
might not have his say. '•' Sure," says he, "he's said all he has to say, 
and there's no use in any more." But there was no use in attempting 

E 



5© THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

to convince Mr. Usher that the prisoner was the best judge on this 
point : in fact the poor devil shut his mouth at the admonition, and was 
found guilty with perfect justice. 

A considerable poor-house has been erected at Waterford, but the 
beggars of the place as yet prefer their liberty, and less certain means 
of gaining support. We asked one who was calling down all the 
blessings of all the saints and angels upon us, and telHng a most 
piteous tale of poverty, why she did not go to the poor-house. The 
woman's look at once changed from a sentimental whine to a grin. 
'' Dey owe two hundred pounds at dat house," said she, " and faith, 
an honest woman can't go dere." With which wonderful reason ought 
not the most squeamish to be content? 



After describing, as accurately as words may, the features of a 
landscape, and stating that such a mountain was to the left, and such 
a river or town to the right, and putting down the situations and 
names of the villages, and the bearings of the roads, it has no doubt 
struck the reader of books of travels that the writer has not given him 
the slightest idea of the country, and that he would have been just as 
wise without perusing the letter-press landscape through which he has 
toiled. It will be as well then, under such circumstances, to spare the 
public any lengthened description of the road from Waterford to 
Dungarvan ; which was the road we took, followed by benedictions 
delivered gratis from the beggarhood of the former city. Not very far 
from it you see the dark plantations of the magnificent domain of 
Curraghmore, and pass through a country, blue, hilly, and bare, except 
where gentlemen's seats appear with their ornaments of wood. Pre- 
sently, after leaving Waterford, we came to a certain town called 
Kilmacthomas, of which all the information I have to give is, that it is 
situated upon a hill and river, and that you may change horses there. 
The road was covered with carts of seaweed, which the people were 
bringing for manure from the shore some four miles distant; and 
beyond Kilmacthomas we beheld the Cummeragh Mountains, " often 
named in maps the Nennavoulagh," either of which names the reader 
may select at pleasure. 

Thence we came to " Cushcam," at which vilhge be it known that 
the turnpike-man kept the drag a very long time waiting. " I think 
the fellow must be writing a book," said the coachman, with a most 
severe look of drollery at a cockney tourist, who tried, under the cir- 
cumstances, to laugh, and not to blush. I wish I could relate or 



TRAPPIST AND QUAKER MONKS. 51 

remember half the mad jokes that flew about among the jolly Irish 
crew on the top of the coach, and which would have made a journey 
through the Desert jovial. When the "pike-man had finished his 
composition (that of a turnpike-ticket, \\h.\<^\\ he had to fill,) we drove 
on to Dungarvan ; the two parts of which town, separated by the river 
Colligan, have been joined by a causeway three hundred yards along, 
and a bridge erected at an enormous outlay by the Duke of Devon- 
shire. In former times, before his Grace spent his eighty thousand 
pounds upon the causeway, this wide estuary was called " Dungarvan 
Prospect," because the ladies of the country, walking over the river at 
low water, took off their shoes and stockings (such as had them), and 
tucking up their clothes, exhibited— what I have never seen, and 
cannot therefore be expected to describe. A large and handsome 
Catholic chapel, a square with some pretensions to regularity of 
building, a very neat and comfortable inn, and beggars and idlers still 
more numerous than at" Waterford, were what we had leisure to 
remark in half-an-hour's stroll through the town. 

Near the prettily situated village of Cappoquin is the Trappist 
House of Mount Meilleraie, of which we could only see the pinnacles. 
The brethren were presented some years since with a barren mountain, 
which they have cultivated most successfully. They have among 
themselves workmen to -supply all their frugal wants : ghostly tailors 
and shoemakers, spiritual gardeners and bakers, working in silence, 
and serving heaven after their way. If this reverend community, for 
fear of the opportunity of sinful talk, choose to hold their tongues, the 
next thing will be to cut them out altogether, and so render the danger 
impossible : if, being men of education and intelligence, they incline to 
turn butchers and cobblers, and smother their intellects by base and 
hard menial labour, who knows but one day a sect may be more pious 
still, and rejecting even butchery and bakery as savouring too much 
of worldly convenience and pride, take to a wild-beast hfe at once ? Let 
us concede that suffering, and mental and bodily debasement, are 
the things most agreeable to heaven, and there is no knowing where 
such piety may stop. I was very glad we had not time to see the 
grovelling place; and as for seeing shoes made or fields tilled by 
reverend amateurs, we can find cobblers and ploughboys to do the 
work better. 

By the way, the Quakers have set up in Ireland a sort of monkery 
of their own. Not far from Carlow we met a couple of cars drawn by 
white horses, and holding white Quakers and Quakeresses, in white 
hats, clothes, shoes, with wild maniacal-looking faces, bumping along 



52 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

the road. Let us hope that we may soon get a community of Fakeers 
and howhng Dervishes into the country. It would be a refreshing 
thing to see such ghostly men in one's travels, standing at the corners 
of roads and praising the Lord by standing on one leg, or cutting and 
hacking themselves with knives like the prophets of Baal. Is it not 
as pious for a man to deprive himself of his leg as of his tongue, and 
to disfigure his body with the gashes of a knife, as with the hideous 
white raiment of the illuminated Quakers ? 

While these reflections were going on, the beautiful Blackwater 
river suddenly opened before us, and driving along it for three miles 
through some of the most beautiful, rich country ever seen, we came 
to Lismore. Nothing certainly can be more magnificent than this 
drive. Parks and rocks covered with the grandest foliage; rich, 
handsome seats of gentlemen in the midst of fair lawns and beautiful 
bright plantations and shrubberies ; and at the end, the graceful spire 
of Lismore church, the prettiest I have seen in, or, I think, out of 
Ireland. Nor in any country that I have visited have I seen a view 
more noble— it is too rich and peaceful to be what is called romantic, 
but lofty, large, and generous^ if the term may be used; the river and 
banks as fine as the Rhine ; the castle not as large, but as noble and 
picturesque as Warwick. As you pass the bridge, the banks stretch 
away on either side in amazing verdure, and the castle-walks remind 
one somewhat of the dear old terrace of St. Germains, with its groves, 
and long grave avenues of trees. 

The salmon-fishery of the Blackwater is let, as I hear, for a 
thousand a year. In the evening, however, we saw some gentlemen 
who are likely to curtail the profits of the farmer of the fishery — a 
company of ragged boys, to wit — whose occupation, it appears, is to 
poach. These young fellows were all lolling over the bridge, as the 
moon rose rather mistily, and pretended to be deeply enamoured of 
the view of the river. They answered the questions of one of our 
party with the utmost innocence and openness, and one would have 
supposed the lads were so many Arcadians, but for the arrival of an 
old woman, who suddenly coming up among them poured out, upon 
one and all, a volley of curses, both deep and loud, saying that per- 
dition would be their portion, and calling them " shcharners " at least 
a hundred times. Much to my wonder, the young men did not reply 
to the voluble old lady for some time, who then told us the cause of 
her anger. She had a son,— " Look at him there, the villain." The 
lad was standing, looking very unhappy. " His father, that's now 
dead, paid a fistful of money to bind him 'prentice at Dungarvan : but 



SALMON-POA CHERS. 53 

these shchamers followed him there ; made him break his indentures, 
and go poaching and thieving and shchaming with them." The poor 
old woman shook her hands in the air, and shouted at the top of her 
deep voice : there was something very touching in her grotesque 
sorrow ; nor did the lads make light of it at all, contenting themselves 
with a surly growl, or an oath, if directly appealed to by the poor 
creature. 

So, cursing and raging, the woman went away. The son, a lad 
of fourteen, evidently the fag of the big bullies round about him, stood 
dismally away from them, his head sunk down. I went up and asked 
him, "Was that his mother?" He said, "Yes." "Was she good 
and kind to him when he was at home ? " He said, " Oh, yes." " Why 
not come back to her ? " I asked him ; but he said " he couldn't." 
Whereupon I took his arm, and tried to lead him away by main 
force ; but he said, " Thank you, sir, but I can't go back," and released 
his arm. We stood on the bridge some minutes longer, looking at the 
view ; but the boy, though he kept away from his comrades, would 
not come. I wonder what they have done together, that the poor boy 
is past going home ? The place seemed to be so quiet and beautiful, 
and faraway from London, that I thought crime couldn't have reached 
it ; and yet here it lurks somewhere among six boys of sixteen, each with 
a stain in his heart, and some black history to tell. The poor widow's 
yonder was the only family about which I had a chance of knowing 
anything in this remote place ; nay, in all Ireland : and God help us, 
hers was a sad lot ! — A husband gone dead, — an only child gone to 
ruin. It is awful to think that there are eight millions of stories to 
be told in this island. Seven million nine hundred and ninety-nine 
thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight more lives that I, and all 
brother cockneys, know nothing about. Well, please God, they are 
not all like this. 

That day, I heard another history. A little old disreputable man 
in tatters, with a huge steeple of a hat, came shambling down the 
street, one among the five hundred blackguards there. A fellow 
standing under the " Sun " portico (a sort of swaggering, chattering, 
cringeing touter, and master of ceremonies to the gutter,) told us 
something with regard to the old disreputable man. His son had been 
hanged the day before at Clonmel, for one of the Tipperary murders. 
That blackguard in our eyes instantly looked quite different from all 
other blackguards : I saw him gesticulating at the corner of a street; 
and watched him with wonderful interest. 

The church with the handsome spire, that looks so graceful among 



54 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

the trees, is a cathedral church, and one of the neatest-kept and 
prettiest edifices I have seen in Ireland. In the old graveyard Pro- 
testants and Catholics lie together — that is, not together ; for each 
has a side of the ground where they sleep, and, so occupied, do 
not quarrel. The sun was shining down upon the brilliant grass — 
and I don't think the shadows of the Protestant graves were any 
longer or shorter than those of the Catholics? Is it the right or 
the left side of the graveyard which is nearest heaven I wonder? 
Look, the sun shines upon both alike, " and the blue sky bends over 
all." 

Raleigh's house is approached by a grave old avenue, and well- 
kept w^all, such as is rare in this country ; and the court of the castle 
within has a solid, comfortable, quiet look, equally rare. It is like 
one of our colleges at Oxford : there is a side of the quadrangle 
with pretty ivy-covered gables ; another part of the square is more 
modern ; and by the main body of the castle is a small chapel 
exceedingly picturesque. The interior is neat and in excellent order ; 
but it was unluckily done up some thirty years ago (as I imagine 
from the style), before our architects had learned Gothic, and all the 
ornamental work is consequently quite ugly and out of keeping. The 
church has probably been arranged by the same hand. In the castle 
are some plainly-furnished chambers, one or two good pictures, and 
a couple of oriel windows, the views from which up and down the 
river are exceedingly lovely. You hear praises of the Duke of 
Devonshire as a landlord wherever you go among his vast estates : 
it is a pity that, with such a noble residence as this, and with such 
a wonderful country round about it, his Grace should not inhabit Ii 
more. 

Of the road from Lismore to Fermoy it does not behove me to 
say much, for a pelting rain came on very soon after we quitted the 
former place, and accompanied us almost without ceasing to Ferm.oy. 
Here we had a glimpse of a bridge across the Blackwater, which we 
had skirted in our journey from Lismore. Now enveloped in mist 
and cloud, now spanned by a rainbow, at another time, basking in 
sunshine. Nature attired the charming prospect for us in a score 
of different ways ; and it appeared before us like a coquettish beauty 
who w^as trying what dress in her wardrobe might most become her. 
At Fermoy we saw a vast barrack, and an overgrown inn, where, 
however, good fare w^as provided ; and thence hastening came by 
Rathcormack, and Watergrass Hill, famous for the residence of 
Father Prout, whom my friend the Rev. Francis Sylvester has 



FERMOY TO CORK. 55 

made immortal ; from which descending we arrived at the beau^ 
tiful wooded village of Glanmire, with its mills, and steeples, and 
streams, and neat school-houses, and pleasant country residences. 
This brings us down upon the superb stream which leads from the 
sea to Cork. 

The view for three miles on both sides is magnificently beautiful. 
Fine gardens, and parks, and villas cover the shore on each bank; 
the river is full of brisk craft moving to the city or out to sea ; and the 
city finely ends the view, rising upon two hills on either side of the 
stream. I do not know a town to which there is an entrance more 
beautiful, commodious, and stately. 

Passing by numberless handsome lodges, and, nearer the city, 
many terraces in neat order, the road conducts us near a large tract 
of some hundred acres which have been reclaimed from the sea, and 
are destined to form a park and pleasure-ground for the citizens of 
Cork. In the river, and up to the bridge, some hundreds of ships 
were lying ; and a fleet of steamboats opposite the handsome house of 
the Saint George's Steam-Packet Company. A church stands prettily 
on the hill above it, surrounded by a number of new habitations very 
neat and white. On the road is a handsome Roman CathoHc chapel, 
or a chapel which will be handsome so soon as the necessary funds 
are raised to complete it. But, as at Waterford, the chapel has been 
commenced, and the money has failed, and the fine portico which is 
to decorate it one day, as yet only exists on the architect's paper. 
Saint Patrick's Bridge, over which we pass, is a pretty building ; and 
Patrick Street, the main street of the town, has an air of business and 
cheerfulness, and looks densely thronged. 

As the carriage drove up to those neat, comfortable, and extensive 
lodgings which Mrs. MacO'Boy has to let, a magnificent mob was 
formed round the vehicle, and we had an opportunity of at once 
making acquaintance with some of the dirtiest rascally faces that all 
Ireland presents. Besides these professional rogues and beggars, who 
make a point to attend on all vehicles, everybody else seemed to stop 
too, to see that wonder, a coach and four horses. People issued from 
their shops, heads appeared at windows. I have seen the Queen pass 
in state in London, and not bring together a crowd near so great as 
that which assembled in the busiest street of the second city of the 
kingdom, just to look at a green coach and four bay-horses. Have 
they nothing else to do? — or is it that they will do nothing but stare, 
swagger, and be idle in the streets ? 



56 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



CHAPTER V. 



CORK— THE AGRICULTURAL SHOW- FATHER MATHEW. 



MAN has no need to be an 
agriculturist in order to take 
a warm interest in the 
success of the Irish Agri- 
cultural Society, and to see 
what vast good may result 
from it to the country. The 
National Education scheme 
■ — a noble and liberal one, 
at least as far as a stranger 
can see, which might have 
united the Irish people, and 
brought peace into this most 
distracted of all countries—^ 
failed unhappily of one of 
its greatest ends. The Pro- 
testant clergy have always 
treated the plan with bitter 
hostility : and I do believe, in withdrawing from it, have struck the 
greatest blow to themselves as a body, and to their own influence in the 
country, which has been dealt to them for many a year. Rich, charitable, 
pious, well-educated, to be found in every parish in Ireland, had they 
chosen to fraternise with the people and the plan, they might have 
directed the educational movement ; they might have attained the 
influence which is now given over entirely to the priest ; and when 
the present generation, educated in the national-schools, were grown 
up to manhood, they might have had an interest in almost every 
man in Ireland. Are they as pious, and more polished, and better 
educated than their neighbours the priests ? There is no doubt of it ; 
and by constant communion with the people, they would have gained 
all the benefits of the comparison, and advanced the interests of their 
religion far more than now ihey can hope to do. Look at the 




IRISH PROTECTION. 



57 



national-school : throughout the country it is commonly by the 
chapel side — it is a Catholic school, directed and fostered by the 
priest ; and as no people are more eager for learning, more apt to 
receive it, or more grateful for kindness than the Irish, he gets all the 
gratitude of the scholars who flock to the school, and all the future 
influence over them, which naturally and justly comes to him. The 
Protestant wants to better the condition of these people : he says that 
the woes of the country are owing to its prevalent religion ; and in 
order to carry his plans of amelioration into effect, he obstinately 
refuses to hold communion with those whom he is desirous to convert 
to what he believes are sounder principles and purer doctrines. The 
clergyman will reply, that points of principle prevented him : with 
this fatal doctrinal objection, it is not, of course, the province of a 
layman to meddle ; but this is clear, that the parson might have had 
an influence over the country, and he would not ; that he might have 
rendered the Catholic population friendly to him, and he would not ; 
but, instead, has added one cause of estrangement and hostility more 
to the many which already existed against him. This is one of the 
attempts at union in Ireland, and one can't but think with the deepest 
regret and sorrow of its failure. 

Mr. O'Connell and his friends set going another scheme for 
advancing the prosperity of the country,— the notable project of home 
manufactures, and of a coahtion against foreign importation. This 
was a union certainly,, but a union of a different sort to that noble and 
peaceful one which the National Education Board proposed. It was 
to punish England, while it pretended to secure the independence of 
Ireland, by shutting out our manufactures from the Irish markets ; 
which were one day or other, it was presumed, to be filled by native 
produce. Large bodies of tradesmen and private persons in Dublin 
and other towns in Ireland associated together, vowing to purchase 
no articles of ordinary consumption or usage but what were manu- 
factured in the country. This bigoted, old-world scheme of restriction 
— not much more liberal than Swing's crusade against the thresh- 
ing-machines or the coahtions in England against machinery— 
failed, as it deserved to do. For the benefit of a few tradesmen, who 
might find their account in selling at dear rates their clumsy and 
imperfect manufactures, it was found impossible to tax a people that 
are already poor enough; nor did the party take into account the 
cleverness of the merchants across sea, who were by no means dis- 
posed to let go their Irish customers. The famous Irish frieze uniform 
which was to distinguish these patriots, and which Mr. O'Connell 



3$ THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

lauded so loudly and so simply, came over made at half-price from 
Leeds and Glasgow, and was retailed as real Irish by many worthies 
who had been first to join the union. You may still see shops here 
and there with their pompous announcement of " Irish Manufactures ; " 
but the scheme is long gone to ruin : it could not stand against the 
vast force of English and Scotch capital and machinery, any more than 
the Ulster spinning-wheel against the huge factories and steam- 
engines which one may see about Belfast. 

The scheme of the Agricultural Society is a much more feasible 
one ; and if, please God, it can be carried out, likely to give not only 
prosperity to the country, but union likewise in a great degree. As 
yet Protestants and Catholics concerned in it have worked well 
together ; and it is a blessing to see them meet upon any ground 
without heartburning and quarrelling. Last year, Mr. Purcell, who 
is well known in Ireland as the principal mail-coach contractor for the 
country, — who himself employs more workmen in Dublin than perhaps 
any other person there, and has also more land under cultivation than 
most of the great landed proprietors in the country,— wrote a letter to 
the newspapers, giving his notions of the fallacy of the exclusive- 
deahng system, and pointing out at the same time how he considered 
the country might be benefited—by agricultural improvement, namely. 
He spoke of the neglected state of the country, and its amazing 
natural fertility ; and, for the benefit of all, called upon the landlords 
and landholders to use their interest and develop its vast agricultural 
resources. Manufactures are at best but of slow growth, and demand 
not only time, but capital ; meanwhile, until the habits of the people 
should grow to be such as to render manufactures feasible, there was 
a great neglected treasure, lying under their feet, which might be the 
source of prosperity to all. He pointed out the superior methods of 
husbandry employed in Scotland and England, and the great results 
obtained upon soils naturally much poorer ; and, taking the Highland 
Society for an example, the establishment of which had done so much 
for the prosperity of Scotland, he proposed the formation in Ireland 
of a similar association. 

The letter made an extraordinary sensation throughout the country. 
Noblemen and gentry of all sides took it up ; and numbers of these 
wrote to Mr. Purcell, and gave him their cordial adhesion to the plan. 
A meeting was held, and the Society formed : subscriptions were set 
on foot, headed by the Lord Lieutenant (Fortescue) and the Duke of 
Leinster, each with a donation of 200/. ; and the trustees had soon 
5,000^, at their disposal : with, besides, an annual revenue of 1,000/. 



thK agricultural society. 59 

The subscribed capital is funded ; and political subjects strictly ex- 
cluded. The Society has a show yearly in one of the principal towns 
of Ireland : it corresponds with the various local agricultural associ- 
ations throughout the country ; encourages the formation of new ones ; 
and distributes prizes and rewards. It has further in contemplation, 
to establish a large Agricultural school for farmers' sons ; and has 
formed in Dublin an Agricultural Bazaar and Museum. 



It was the first meeting of the Society which we were come to see 
at Cork. Will it be able to carry its excellent intentions into effect ? 
Will the present enthusiasm of its founders and members continue ? 
Will one political party or another get the upper hand in it ? One 
can't help thinking of these points with some anxiety — of the latter 
especially : as yet, happily, the clergy of either side have kept aloof, 
and the union seems pretty cordial and sincere. 

There are in Cork, as no doubt in every town of Ireland sufficiently 
considerable to support a plurality of hotels, some especially devoted 
to the Conservative and Liberal parties. Two dinners were to be 
given apropos of the Agricultural meeting ; and in order to conciliate 
all parties, it was determined that the Tory landlord should find the 
cheap ten- shilling dinner for one thousand, the Whig landlord the 
genteel guinea dinner for a few select hundreds. 

I wish Mr. Cuff, of the " Freemasons' Tavern," could have been 
at Cork to take a lesson from the latter gentleman : for he would have 
seen that there are means of having not merely enough to eat, but 
enough of the very best, for the sum, of a guinea ; that persons can 
have not only wine, but good wine, and if inclined (as some topers 
ai'e on great occasions) to pass to another bottle, — a second, a third, 
or a fifteenth bottle, for what I know is very much at their service. 
It was a fine sight to see Mr. MacDowall presiding over an ice-well 
and extracting the bottles of champagne. With what calmness he 
did it ! How the corks popped, and the liquor fizzed, and the agri- 
culturists drank the bumpers off! And how good the wine was too 
—the greatest merit of all ! Mr. MacDowall did credit to his liberal 
politics by his liberal dinner. 

" Sir," says a waiter whom I asked for currant-jelly for the haunch 
— (there were a dozen such smoking on various parts of the table — 
think of that, Mr. Cuff !)— " Sir," says the waiter, " there's no jelly, 
but I've brought you some very fine lobster-sauceP I think this was 
the most remarkable speech of the evening ; not excepting that of my 



6o THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

Lord Bernard, who, to three hundred gentlemen more or less con- 
nected with farming, had actually the audacity to quote the v/ords of 
the great agricultural poet of Rome— 

" fortiinatos Jii/nium S7ia si," (2r-v. 

How long are our statesmen in England to continue to back their 
opinions by the Latin grammar? Are the Irish agriculturists so very 
happy, if they did but know it— at least those out of doors ? Well, 
those within were jolly enough. Champagne and claret, turbot and 
haunch, are gifts of the Jus/issima telliis, with which few husbandmen 
will be disposed to quarrel : — no more let us quarrel either with 
eloquence after dinner. 

Tf the Liberal landlord had shown his principles in his dinner, 
the Conservative certainly showed his ; by conserving as much profit 
as possible for himself. We sat down one thousand to some two 
hundred and fifty cold joints of meat. Every man was treated with a 
pint of wine, and very bad too, so that there was the less cause to 
grumble because more was not served. Those agriculturists who 
had a mind to drink whisky-and-water had to pay extra for their 
punch. Nay, after shouting in vain for half-an-hour to a waiter for 
some cold water, the unhappy writer could only get it by promising a 
shilling. The sum was paid on delivery of the article ; but as every- 
body round was thirsty too, I got but a glassful from the decanter, 
which only served to make me long for more. The waiter (the rascal !) 
promised more, but never came near us afterwards : he had got his 
shilling, and so he left us in a hot room, surrounded by a thousand hot 
fellow-creatures, one of them making a dry speech. The agricultu- 
rists were not on this occasion niviiumfortiinati. 

To have heard a nobleman, however, who discoursed to the meet- 
ing, you would have fancied that we were the luckiest mortals under 
the broiling July sun. He said he could conceive nothing more 
delightful than to see, "on proper occasions," — (mind, on proper 
occasions /)—^' the landlord mixing with his tenantry; and to look 
around him at a scene like this, and see f/ie condescetision with which 
the gentry mingled with the farmers ! " Prodigious condescension 
truly ! This neat speech seemed to me an oratorio slap on the face to 
about nine hundred and seventy persons present ; and being one of 
the latter, I began to hiss by way of acknowledgment of the compli- 
ment, and hoped that a strong party would have destroyed the har- 
mony of the evening, and done likewise. But not one hereditary 
bondsman would join in the compliment— and they were quite right 



IRISH BEAUTY. 6i 

too. The old lord who talked about condescension is one of the 
greatest and kindest landlords in Ireland. If he thinks he condescends 
by doing his duty and mixing with men as good as himself, the fault 
lies with the latter. Why are they so ready to go down on their 
knees to my lord.? A man can't help "condescending" to another 
who will persist in kissing his shoestrings. They respect rank in 
England — the people seem almost to adore it here. 

As an instance of the intense veneration for lords which distin- 
guishes this county of Cork, I may mention what occurred afterwards. 
The members of the Cork Society gave a dinner to their guests of the 
Irish Agricultural Association. The founder" of the latter, as Lord 
Dovvnshire stated, was Mr. Purcell : and as it was agreed on all hands 
that the Society so founded was likely to prove of the greatest 
benefit to the country, one might have supposed that any compliment 
paid to it might have been paid to it through its founder. Not 
so. The Society asked the lords to dine, and Mr. Purcell to meet 
the lords. 

After the grand dinner came a grand ball, which was indeed one 
of the gayest and prettiest sights ever seen ; nor was it the less 
agreeable, because the ladies of the city mixed with the ladies from 
the country, and vied with them in grace and beauty. The charming 
gaiety and frankness of the Irish ladies have been noted and admired 
by every foreigner who has had the good fortune to mingle in their 
society ; and I hope it is not detracting from the merit of the upper 
classes to say that the lower are not a whit less pleasing. I never 
saw in any country such a general grace of manner and ladyhood. In 
the midst of their gaiety, too, it must be remembered that they are 
the chastest of women, and that no country in Europe can boast of 
such a general purity. 

In regard of the Munster ladies, I had the pleasure to be present 
at two or three evening-parties at Cork, and must say that they seem 
to excel the English ladies not only in wit and vivacity, but in the 
still more important article of the toilette. They are as well dressed 
as Frenchwomen, and incomparably handsomer ; and if ever this 
book reaches a thirtieth edition, and I can find out better words to 
express admiration, they shall be inserted here. Among the ladies' 
accomplishments, I may mention that I have heard in two or three 
private families such fine music as is rarely to be met with out of a 
capital. In one house we had a supper and songs afterwards, in the 
old honest fashion. Time was in Ireland when the custom was a 
common one ; but the world grows languid as it grows genteel ; and 



62 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. . 

I fancy it requires more than ordinary spirit and courage now for a 
good old gentleman, at the head of his kind family table, to strike up 
a good old family song. 

The delightful old gentleman who sung the song here mentioned 
could not help talking of the Temperance movement with a sort of 
regret, and said that all the fun had gone out of Ireland since Father 
Mathew banished the whisky from it. Indeed, any stranger going 
amongst the people can perceive that they are now anything but gay. 
I have seen a great number of crowds and meetings of people in all 
parts of Ireland, and found them all gloomy. There is nothing like the 
merry-making one reads of in the Irish novels. Lever and Maxwell 
must be taken as chroniclers of the old times — the pleasant but wrong 
old times — for which ©ne can't help having an antiquarian fondness. 

On the day we arrived at Cork, and as the passengers descended 
from "the drag," a stout, handsome, honest-looking man, of some 
two-and-forty years, was passing by, and received a number of bows 
from the crowd around. It was 

with whose face a thousand little print-shop windows had already 
rendered me familiar. He shook hands with the master of the 
carriage very cordially, and just as cordially with the master's coach- 
man, a disciple of temperance, as at least half Ireland is at present. 
The day after the famous dinner at MacDowall's, some of us came 
down rather late, perhaps in consequence of the events of the night 
before — (I think it was Lord Bernard's' quotation from Virgil, or 
else the absence of the currant -jelly for the venison, that occasioned 
a shght headache among some of us, and an extreme longing for 
soda-water,) — and there was the Apostle of Temperance seated at the 
table drinking tea. Some of us felt a little ashamed of ourselves, 
and did not like to ask somehow for the soda-water in such an awful 
presence as that. Besides, it would have been a confession to a 
Catholic priest, and, as a Protestant, I am above it. 

The world likes to know how a great man appears even to a 
valet-de-chambre, and I suppose it is one's vanity that is flattered in 
such rare company to find the great man quite as unassuming as the 
very smallest personage present ; and so like to other mortals, that 
we would not know him to be a great man at all, did we not know 
his name, and what he had done. There is nothing remarkable in 
Mr. Mathew's manner, except that it is exceedingly simple, hearty, and 



FATHER MAT HEW. 63 

manly, and that he does not wear the downcast, demure look which, 
I know not why, certainly characterizes the chief part of the gentle- 
men of his profession. Whence comes that general scowl which 
darkens the faces of the Irish priesthood ? I have met a score of 
these reverend gentlemen in the country, and not one of them seemed 
to look or speak frankly, except Mr. Mathew, and a couple more. 
He is almost the only man, too, that I have met in Ireland, who, in 
speaking of public matters, did not talk as a partisan. With the 
state of the country, of landlord, tenant, and peasantry, he seemed 
to be most curiously and intimately acquainted ; speaking of their 
wants, differences, and the means of bettering them, with the minutest 
practical knowledge. And it was impossible in hearing him to know, 
but from previous acquaintance with his character, whether he was 
Whig or Tory^, Catholic or Protestant. Why does not Government 
make a Privy Councillor of him ? — that is, if he would honour the 
Right Honourable body by taking a seat amongst them. His know- 
ledge of the people is prodigious, and their confidence in him as 
great ; and what a touching attachment that is which these poor 
fellows show to any one who has their cause at heart — even to any 
one who says he has ! 

Avoiding all pohtical questions, no man seems more eager than 
he for the practical improvement of this country. Leases and rents, 
farming improvements, reading-societies, music-societies — he was full 
of these, and of his schemes of temperance above all. He never 
misses a chance of making a convert, and has his hand ready and a 
pledge in his pocket for sick or poor. One of his disciples in a livery- 
coat came into the room with a tray — Mr. Mathew recognized him, 
and shook him by the hand directly ; so he did with the strangers 
who were presented to him; and not with a courtly popularity-hunting 
air, but, as it seemed, from sheer hearty kindness, and a desire to do 
every one good. 

When breakfast was done — (he took but one cup of tea, and says 
that, from having been a great consumer of tea and refreshing liquids 
before, a small cup of tea, and one glass of water at dinner, now serve 
him for his day's beverage) — he took the ladies of our party to see his 
burying-ground — a new and handsome cemetery, lying a little way 
out of the town, and where, thank God ! Protestants and Catholics 
may lie together, without clergymen quarrelling over their coffins. 

It is a handsome piece of ground, and was formerly a botanic 
garden ; but the funds failed for that undertaking, as they have for a 
thousand other public enterprises in this poor disunited country ; and 



64 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

so it has been converted into a hortus siccus for us mortals. There is 
already a pretty large collection. In the midst is a place for Mathew.' 
himself^honour to him living or dead ! Meanwhile, numerous 
stately monuments have been built, flowers planted here and there 
over dear remains, and the garden in which they lie is rich, green, and 
beautiful. Here is a fine statue, by Hogan, of a weeping genius that 
broods over the tomb of an honest merchant and clothier of the city. 
He took a liking to the artist, his fellow-townsman, and ordered his 
own monument, and had the gratification to see it arrive from Rome 
a few weeks before his death. A prettier thing even than the statue 
is the tomb of a little boy, which has been shut in by a large and 
curious grille of iron-work. The father worked it, a blacksmith, whose 
darhng the child was, and he spent three years in hammering out this 
mausoleum. It is the beautiful story of the pot of ointment told 
again at the poor blacksmith's anvil ; and who can but like him for 
placing this fine gilded cage over the body of his poor little one ? 
Presently you come to a Frenchwoman's tomb, with a French epitaph 
by a French husband, and a pot of artificial flowers in a niche— a 
wig, and a pot of rouge, as it were, just to make the dead look pass- 
ably well. It is his manner of showing his sympathy for an immortal 
soul that has passed away. The poor may be buried here for nothing ; 
and here, too, once more thank God ! each may rest without priests 
or parsons scowling hell-fire at his neighbour unconscious under the 
grass. 



A VISIT TO A CONVENT, 



65 



CHAPTER VI. 



CORK— THE URSULINE CONVENT. 



HERE is a large Ursuline 
convent at Blackrock, near 
Cork, and a lady who 
had been educated there 
was kind enough to invite 
me to join a party to visit 
the place. Was not this a 
great privilege for a heretic ? 
I have peeped into convent 
chapels abroad, and occa- 
sionally caught glimpses 
of a white veil or black 
gown ; but to see the pious 
ladies in their own retreat 
was quite a novelty — much 
more exciting than the exhi- 
bition of Long Horns and 
Short Horns by which we 
had to pass on our road to Blackrock. 

The three miles' ride is very pretty. As far as nature goes, she 
has done her best for the neighbourhood ; and the noble hills on the 
opposite coast of the river, studded with innumerable pretty villas and 
garnished with fine trees and meadows, the river itself dark blue under 
a brilliant cloudless heaven, and lively with its multiplicity of gay craft, 
accompany the traveller along the road ; except here and there where 
the view is shut out by fine avenues of trees, a beggarly row of cot- 
tages, or a villa wall. Rows of dirty cabins, and smart bankers' 
country-houses, meet one at every turn, nor do the latter want for fine 
names, you may be sure. The Irish grandiloquence displays itself 
finely in the invention of such ; and, to the great inconvenience, I 
should think, of the postman, the names of the houses appear to 

F 




66 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

change with the tenants : for I saw many old houses with new placards 
in front, setting forth the last title of the house. 

1 had the box of the carriage (a smart vehicle that would have 
done credit to the ring), and found the gentleman by my side very 
communicative. He named the owners of the pretty mansions and 
lawns visible on the other side of the river : they appear almost all to 
be merchants, who have made their fortunes in the city. In the like 
manner, though the air of the town is extremely fresh and pure to a 
pair of London lungs, the Cork shopkeeper is not satisfied with it, but 
contrives for himself a place (with an euphonious name, no doubt) in 
the suburbs of the city. These stretch to a great extent along the 
beautiful, liberal-looking banks of the stream. 

I asked the man about the Temperance, and whether he was a 
temperance man ? He replied by pulling a medal out of his waist- 
coat pocket, saying that he always carried it about with him for fear 
of temptation. He said that he took the pledge two years ago, 
before which time, as he confessed, he had been a sad sinner in the 
way of drink. " I used to take," said he, " from eighteen to twenty 
glasses of whisky a day ; I was always at the drink ; I'd be often up 
all night at the public : I was turned away by my present master on 
account of it ; " — and all of a sudden he resolved to break it off. I 
asked him whether he had not at first experienced ill-health from the 
suddenness of the change in his habits : but he said — and let all 
persons meditating a conversion from liquor remember the fact — that 
the abstinence never affected him in the least, but that he went on 
growing better and better in health every day, stronger and more able 
of mind and body. 

The man was a Catholic, and in speaking of the numerous places 
of worship along the road as we passed, I'm sorry to confess, dealt 
some rude cuts with his whip regarding the Protestants. Coachman 
as he was, the fellow's remarks seemed to be correct • for it appears 
that the religious world of Cork is of so excessively enlightened a kind, 
that one church will not content one pious person ; but that, on the 
contrary, they will be at Church of a morning, at Independent church 
of an afternoon, at a Darbyite congregation of an evening, and so on, 
gathering excitement or information from all sources which they could 
come at. Is not this the case.'* are not some of the ultra-serious as 
eager after a new preacher, as the ultra-worldly for a new dancer.? 
don't they talk and gossip about him as much? Though theology 
from the coach-box is rather questionable, (after all, the man was just 
aa much authorised to propound his notions as many a fellow from an 



A NUN. 67 

amateur pulpit,) yet he certainly had the right here as far as his charge 
against certain Protestants went. 

The reasoning from it was quite obvious, and I'm sure was in the 
man's mind, though he did not utter it, as we drove by this time into 
the convent gate. " Here," says coachman, " is <7//r church, /don't 
drive my master and mistress from church to chapel, from chapel to 
conventicle, hunting after new preachers every Sabbath. I bring 
them every Sunday and set them down at the same place, where they 
know that everything they hear imcst be right. Their fathers have 
done the same thing before them ; and the young ladies and gentle- 
men will come here too ; and all the new-fangled doctors and teachers 
may go roaring through the land, and still here we come regularly, 
not caring a whit for the vagaries of others, knowing that we ourselves 
are in the real old right original way." 

I am sure this is what the fellow meant by his sneer at the Pro- 
testants, and their gadding from one doctrine to another ; but there 
was no call and no time to have a battle with him, as by this time we 
had entered a large lawn covered with haycocks, and prettily, as I 
think, oramented with a border of blossoming potatoes, and drove up 
to the front door of the convent. It is a huge old square house, with 
many windows, having probably been some flaunting squire's resi- 
dence ; but the nuns have taken off somewhat from its rakish look, by 
flinging out a couple of wings with chapels, or buildings like chapels, 
at either end. 

A large, lofty, clean, trim hall was open to a flight of steps, and 
we found a young lady in the hall, playing, instead of a pious sonata 
— which I vainly thought was the practice in such godly seminaries 
of learning — that abominable rattling piece of music called "/c? 
Violetie^'' which it has been my lot to hear executed by other young 
ladies ; and which (with its like) has always appeared to me to be 
constructed upon this simple fashion— to take a tune, and then, as 
it were, to fling it down and upstairs. As soon as the young lady 
playing " the Violet " saw us, she quitted the hall and retired to an 
inner apartment, where she resumed that delectable piece at her 
leisure. Indeed there were pianos all over the educational part of the 
house. 

We were shown into a gay parlour (where hangs a pretty draw- 
ing representing the melancholy old convent which the Sisters pre- 
viously inhabited in Cork), and presently Sister No. Two-Eight made 
her appearance— a pretty and graceful lady, attired as on the next 
page. 

F2 



68 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK, 

" 'Tis the prettiest nun of the whole house," whispered the lady 
who had been educated at the convent ; and I must own that slim, 
gentle, and pretty as this young lady was, and calculated with her 
kind smiling face and little figure to frighten no one in the world, 
a great six-foot Protestant could not help looking at her with a little 
tremble. I had never been in a nun's company before ; I'm afraid 
of such — I don't care to own — in their black mysterious robes and 
awful veils. As priests in gorgeous vestments, and little rosy incense- 
boys in red, bob their heads and knees up and down before altars, 
or clatter silver pots full of smoking odours, I feel I don't know 




what sort of thrill and secret creeping terror. Here I was, in a 
room with a real live nun, pretty and pale — I wonder has she any 
of her sisterhood immured in oubliettes down below ; is her poor little 
weak, delicate body scarred all over with scourgings, iron-collars, 
hair-shirts .? What has she had for dinner to-day ?— as we passed 
the refectory there was a faint sort of vapid nun-like vegetable smell, 
speaking of fasts and wooden platters ; and I could picture to 
myself silent sisters eating their meal— a grim old yellow one in the 
reading-desk, croaking out an extract from a sermon for their edifi- 
cation. 

But is it policy, or hypocrisy, or reality ? These nuns aftect 
extreme happiness and content with their condition : a smiling 
beatitude, which they insist belongs peculiarly to them, and about 



THE URSULLXE CONVENT. Cg 

which the only doubtful point is the manner in which it is produced 
before strangers. Young ladies educated in convents have often 
mentioned this fact — how the nuns persist in declaring and proving to 
them their own extreme enjoyment of life. 

Were all the smiles of that kind-looking Sister Two-Eight perfectly 
sincere ? Whenever she spoke her face was lighted up with one. She 
seemed perfectly radiant with happiness, tripping lightly before us, and 
distributing kind compliments to each, which made me in a very few 
minutes forget the introductory fright which her poor little presence had 
occasioned. 

She took us through the hall (where was the vegetable savour 
before mentioned) and showed us the contrivance by which the name 
of Two-Eight was ascertained. Each nun has a number, or a com- 
bination of numbers, prefixed to her name ; and a bell is pulled a 
corresponding number of times, by which each sister knows when she 
is wanted. Poor souls ! are they always on the look-out for that bell, 
that the ringing of it should be supposed infallibly to awaken their 
attention ? 

From the hall the sister conducted us through ranges of apartments, 
and I had almost said avenues of pianofortes, whence here and there a 
startled pensioner would rise, Jiinniileo siinilis, at our approach, seeking 
a pavidam matrem in the person of a demure old stout mother hard by. 
We were taken through a hall decorated with a series of pictures of 
Pope Pius VI.,— wonderful adventures, truly, in the life of the gentle 
old man. In one you see him gracefully receiving a Prince and 
Princess of Russia (tremendous incident !) The Prince has a pigtail, 
the Princess powder and a train, the Pope a— but never mind, we shall 
never get through the house at this rate. 

Passing through Pope Pius's gahery, we came into a long, clean, 
lofty passage, with many httle doors on each side ; and here I confess 
my heart began to thump again. These were the doors of the cells of 
the Sisters. Boii Dieii ! and is it possible that I shall see a nun's cell ? 
Do I not recollect the nun's cell in " The Monk," or in ♦' The Romance 
of the Forest 1 " or, if not there, at any rate, in a thousand noble 
romances, read in early days of half-holiday perhaps— romances at 
twopence a volume. 

Come in, in the name of the saints ! Here is the cell. I took off 
my hat and examined the little room with much curious wonder and 
reverence. There was an iron bed, with comfortable curtains of green 
serge. There was a little clothes-chest of yellow wood, neatly cleaned, 
and a wooden chair beside it, and a desk on the chest, and about six 



70 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



pictures on the wall — little religious pictures : a saint with gilt paper 
round him ; the Virgin showing on her breast a bleeding heart, with a 
sword run through it ; and other sad little subjects, calculated to make 
the inmate of the cell think of the sufferings of the saints and martyrs of 
the Church. Then there was a little crucifix, and a wax-candle on the 
ledge ; and here was the place where the poor black-veiled things were 
to pass their hves for ever ! 

After having seen a couple of these little cells, we left the corridors 
in which they were, and were conducted, with a sort of pride on the 











-^ 




r^ '1 








M 


i 


;i 


_JWiiii)i» 




nun's part, I thought, into the grand room of the convent — a parlour 
with pictures of saints, and a gay paper, and a series of small fineries, 
such only as women very idle know how to make. There were some 
portraits in the room, one an atrocious daub of an ugly old woman, 
surrounded by children still more hideous. Somebody had told the 
poor nun that this was a fine thing, and she believed it— heaven bless 
her ! — quite implicitly : nor is the picture of the ugly old Canadian 
woman the first reputation that has been made this way. 

Then from the fine parlour we went to the museum. I don't 



THE CONVENT CHAPEL, 71 

know how we should be curious of such trifles ; but the chronicling of 
small-beer is the main business of life— people only differing, as Tom 
Moore wisely says in one of his best poems, about their own peculiar 
tap. The poor nun's little collection of gimcracks was displayed in 
great state : there were spars in one drawer ; and, I think, a Chinese 
shoe and some Indian wares in another ; and some medals of the 
Popes, and a couple of score of coins ; and a clean glass case, full of 
antique works of French theology of the distant period of Louis XV., 
to judge by the bindings — and this formed the main part of the museum. 
" The chief objects were gathered together by a single nun," said the 
sister with a look of wonder, as she went prattling on, and leading us 
hither and thither, like a child showing her toys. 

What strange mixture of pity and pleasure is it which comes ovei- 
you sometimes when a child takes you by the hand, and leads you up- 
solemnly to some little treasure of its own — a feather or a string of 
glass beads ? I declare I have often looked at such with more delight 
than at diamonds ; and felt the same sort of soft wonder examining 
the nuns' little treasure-chamber. There was something touching in 
the very poverty of it : — had it been finer, it would not have been half 
so good? 

And now we had seen all the wonders of the house but the 
chapel, and thither we were conducted ; all the ladies of our party^ 
kneeling down as ihey entered the building, and saying a short 
prayer. 

This, as I am on sentimental confessions, I must own affected me too. 
It was a very pretty and tender sight. I should have liked to kneel 
down too, but was ashamed ; our northern usages not encouraging — 
among men at least — that sort of abandonment of dignity. Do any of 
us dare to sing psalms at church ? and don't we look with rather a 
sneer at a man who does ? 

The chapel had nothing remarkable in it except a very good organ, 
as I was told ; for we were allowed only to see the exterior of that 
instrument, our pious guide with much pleasure removing an oil-cloth 
which covered the mahogany. At one side of the altar is a long high 
grille^ through which you see a hall, where the nuns have their stalls, 
and sit in chapel time ; and beyond this hall is another small chapel, 
v/ith a couple of altars, and one beautiful print in one of them — a 
German Holy Family — a prim, mystical, tender piece, just befitting the 
place. 

In the grille is a little wicket and a ledge before it. It is to this 
wicket that women are brought to kneel ; and a bishop is in the 



72 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

chapel on the other side, and takes their hands in his, and receives 
their vows. I had never seen the like before, and own that I felt a 
sort of shudder at looking at the place. There rest the girl's knees as 
she offers herself up, and forswears the sacred affections which God 
gave her ; there she kneels and denies for ever the beautiful duties of 
her being :— no tender maternal yearnings, no gentle attachments are 
to be had for her or from her, — there she kneels and commits suicide 
upon her heart. O honest Martin Luther ! thank God, you came 
to pull that infernal, wicked, unnatural altar down — that cursed 
Paganism ! Let people, solitary, worn-out by sorrow or oppressed 
with extreme remorse, retire to such places ; fly and beat your breasts 
in caverns and wildernesses, O women, if you will, but be Mag- 
dalens first. It is shameful that any young girl, with any vocation 
however seemingly strong, should be allowed to bury herself in this 
small tomb of a few acres. Look at yonder nun, — pretty, smiling, 
graceful, and young, — what has God's world done to her^ that she 
should run from it, or she done to the world, that she should avoid it ? 
What call has she to give up all her duties and affections ? and would 
she not be best serving God with a husband at her side, and a child on 
her knee ? 

The sights in the house having been seen, the nun led us through 
the grounds and gardens. Tiiere was the hay in front, a fine yellow 
corn-field at the back of the house, and a large melancholy-looking 
kitchen-garden ; in all of which places the nuns, for certain hours in 
the day, are allowed to take recreation. " The nuns here are allowed 
to amuse themselves more than ours at New Hall," said a little girl 
who is educated at that English convent : " do you know that here 
the nuns may make hay ? " What a privilege is this ! We saw none 
of the black sisterhood availing themselves of it, however : the hay 
was neatly piled into cocks and ready for housing ; so the poor souls 
must wait until next year before they can enjoy this blessed sport once 
more. 

Turning into a narrow gate with the nun at our head, we found 
ourselves in a little green, quiet inclosure — it was the burial-ground of 
the convent. The poor things know the places where they are to lie : 
she who was with us talked smilingly of being stretched there one day, 
and pointed out the resting-place of a favourite old sister who had died 
three months back, and been buried in the very midst of the little 
ground. And here they come to live and die. The gates are open, 
but they never go out. All their world lies in a dozen acres of ground ; 
and they sacrifice their lives in early youth, many of them passing 



THE CONVENT BURIAL GROUND. 73 

from the grave upstairs in the house to the one scarcely narrower in 
the churchyard here ; and are seemingly not unhappy. 

I came out of the place quite sick ; and looking before me, — 
there, thank God ! was the blue spire of Monkstown church soaring 
up into the free sky — a river in front rolling away to the sea — liberty, 
sunshine, all sorts of glad life and motion round about : and I 
couldn't but thank heaven for it, and the Being whose service is free- 
dom, and who has given us affections that we may use them — not 
smother and kill them ; and a noble world to live in, that we may 
admire it and Him who made it— not shrink from it, as though we 
dared not live there, but must turn our backs upon it and its bountiful 
Provider. 

And in conclusion, if that most cold-blooded and precise of all 
personages, the respectable and respected English reader, may feel 
disposed to sneer at the above sentimental homily, or to fancy that it 
has been written for effect — let hirn go and see a convent for himself. 
I declare I think for my part that we have- as much right to permit 
Sutteeism in India as to allow women in the United Kingdom to take 
these wicked vows, or Catholic bishops to receive them ; and that 
Government has as good a right to interpose in such cases, as the 
police have to prevent a man from hanging himself, or the doctor to 
refuse a glass of prussic-acid to any one who may have a wish to go 
out of the world. 



74 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



CHAPTER VII. 



CORK. 



ffii [«S 



MIDST the bustle and gaieties 
of the Agricultural meeting, 
the working-day aspect of the 
city was not to be judged of : 
but I passed a fortnight in 
the place afterv/ards, during 
which time it settled down to 
its calm and usual condition. 
The flashy French and plated 
goods' shops, which made a 
show for the occasion of the 
meeting, disappeared ; you 
were no longer crowded and 
jostled by smart male and 
female dandies in walking 
down Patrick Street or the 
Mall; the poor little theatre 
had scarcely a soul on its 
bare benches : I went once, but the dreadful brass-band of a dragoon 
regiment blew me out of doors. This music could be heard much 
more pleasantly at some distance off in the street. 

One sees in this country many a grand and tall iron gate leading 
into a very shabby field covered with thistles ; and the simile to the 
gate will in some degree apply to this famous city of Cork, — which is 
certainly not a city of palaces, but of which the outlets are magnificent. 
That towards Killarney leads by the Lee, the old Avenue of Mardyke, 
and the rich green pastures stretching down to the river ; and as you 
pass by the portico of the county gaol, as fine and as glancing as a 
palace, you see the wooded heights on the other side of the fair stream, 
crowded with a thousand pretty villas and terraces, presenting every 
image of comfort and prosperity. The entrance from Cove has been 




POVERTY IN CORK. 75 

mentioned before ; nor is it easy to find anywhere a nobler, grander, 
and more cheerful scene. 

Along the quays up to Saint Patrick's Bridge there is a certain 
bustle. Some forty ships may be lying at anchor along the walls of 
the quay, and its pavements are covered with goods of various mer- 
chandise : here a cargo of hides ; yonder a company of soldiers, their 
kits, and their Dollies, who are taking leave of the red-coats at the 
steamer's side. Then you shall see a fine, squeaking, shrieking drove 
of pigs embarking by the same conveyance, and insinuated into the 
steamer by all sorts of coaxing, threatening, and wheedling. Seamen 
are singing and yeehoing on board ; grimy colliers smoking at the 
liquor-shops along the quay ; and as for the bridge — there is a crowd 
of idlers on that^ you may be sure, sprawling over the balustrade for 
ever and ever, with long ragged coats, steeple-hats, and stumpy 
doodeens. 

Then along the Coal Quay you may see a clump of jingle-drivers, 
who have all a word for your honour ; and in Patrick Street, at three 
o'clock, when " The Rakes of Mallow " gets under weigh (a cracked 
old coach with the paint rubbed off, some smart horses, and an 
exceedingly dingy harness) — at three o'clock, you will be sure to 
see at least forty persons waiting to witness the departure of the said 
coach : so that the neighbourhood of the inn has an air of some 
bustle. 

At the other extremity of the town, if it be assize time, you will 
see some five hundred persons squatting by the court-house, or 
buzzing and talking within. The rest of the respectable quarter of 
the city is pretty free from anything like bustle : there is no more 
life in Patrick Street than in Russell Square of a sunshiny day ; 
and as for the Mall, it is as lonely as the chief street of a German 
Residenz. 

I have mentioned the respectable quarter of the city— for there 
are quarters in it swarming with life, but of such a frightful kind as no 
pen need care to describe : alleys where the odours and rags and 
darkness are so hideous, that one runs frightened away from them. 
In some of them, they say, not the policeman, only* the priest, can 
penetrate. I asked a Roman Catholic clergyman of the city to take 
me into some of these haunts, but he refused very justly ; and indeed 
a man may be quite satisfied with what he can see in the mere out- 
skirts of the districts, without caring to penetrate further. Not far 
from the quays is an open space where the poor hojd a market or 
bazaar. Here is liveliness and business enough : ragged women 



7J 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



chattering and crying their beggarly wares ; ragged boys gloating 
over dirty apple- and pie-stalls ; fish frying, and raw and stinking ; 
clothes-booths, where you might buy a wardrobe for scarecrows : old 
nails, hoops, bottles, and marine-wares ; old battered furniture, that 
has been sold against starvation. In the streets round about this 
place, on a sunshiny day, all the black gaping windows and mouldy 
steps are covered with squatting lazy figures — women, with bare 
breasts, nursing babies, and leering a joke as you pass by — ragged 
children paddling everywhere. It is but two minutes' walk out of 
Patrick Street, where you come upon a fine flashy shop of plated- 
goods, or a grand French emporium of dolls, walking-sticks, carpet- 
bags, and perfumery. The markets hard by have a rough, old- 
fashioned, cheerful look ; it's a comfort after the misery to hear a red 
butcher's wife crying after you to buy an honest piece of meat. 

The poor-house, newly established, cannot hold a fifth part of the 
poverty of this great town : the richer inhabitants are untiring in their 
charities, and the Catholic clergyman before mentioned took me to see 
a delivery of rice, at which he presides every day until the potatoes 
shall come in. This market, over which he presides so kindly, is held 
in an old bankrupt warehouse, and the rice is sold considerably under 
the prime cost to hundreds of struggling applicants who come when 
lucky enough to have wherewithal to pay. 

That the city contains much wealth is evidenced by the number 
of handsome villas round about it, where the rich merchants dwell ; 
but the warehouses of the wealthy provision-merchants make no show 
to the stranger walking the streets ; and of the retail-shops, if some 
are spacious and handsome, most look as if too big for the business 
carried on within. The want of ready-money was quite curious. In 
three of the principal shops I purchased articles, and tendered a pound 
in exchange — not one of them had silver enough ; and as for a five- 
pound note, which I presented at one of the topping bookseller's, his 
boy went round to various places in vain, and finally set forth to the 
Bank, where change was got. In another small shop I ofi"ered half-a- 
crown to pay for a sixpenny article — it was all the same. "Tim," says 
the good woman, "run out in a hurry and fetch the gentleman change." 
Two of the shopmen, seeing an Englishman, were very particular to 
tell me in what years they themselves had been in London. It seemed 
a merit in these gentlemen's eyes to have once dwelt in that city ; and 
I see in the papers continually ladies advertising as governesses, and 
specifying particularly that they are "English ladies." 

I received six 5/. post-office orders ; I called four times on as many 



SHABBINESS OF BUILDINGS. 77 

different days at the Post Office before the capital could be forth- 
coming, getting on the third application 20/. (after making a great 
clamour, and vowing that such things were unheard-of in England), 
and on the fourth call the remaining 10/. I saw poor people, who may 
have come from the country with their orders, refused payment of an 
order of some ^os. ; and a gentleman who tendered a pound-note in 
payment of a foreign letter, was told to "leave his letter and pay some 
other time." Such things could not take place in the hundred-and- 
second city in England ; and as I do not pretend to doctrinise at all, 
I leave the reader to draw his own deductions with regard to the 
commercial condition and prosperity of the second city in Ireland. 

Half-a-dozen of the public buildings I saw were spacious and 
shabby beyond all cockney belief. Adjoining the "Imperial Hotel" is 
a great, large, handsome, desolate reading-room, which was founded 
by a body of Cork merchants and tradesmen, and is the very picture 
of decay. Not Palmyra — not the Russell Institution in Great Coram 
Street — presents a more melancholy appearance of faded greatness. 
Opposite this is another institution, called the Cork Library, where 
there are plenty of books and plenty of kindness to the stranger ; but 
the shabbiness and folded splendour of the place are quite painful. 
There are three handsome Catholic churches commenced of late years ; 
not one of them is complete : two want their porticoes ; the other is 
not more than thirty feet from the ground, and according to the archi- 
tectural plan was to rise as high as a cathedral. There is an Institu- 
tion, with a fair library of scientific works, a museum, and a drawing- 
school with a supply of casts. The place is in yet more dismal 
condition than the Library : the plasters are spoiled incurably for want 
of a sixpenny feather-brush ; the dust lies on the walls, and nobody 
seems to heed it. Two shilHngs a year would have repaired much of the 
evil which has happened to this institution ; and it is folly to talk of 
inward dissensions and political differences as causing the ruin of such 
institutions ; kings or law don't cause or cure dust and cobwebs, but 
indolence leaves them to accumulate, and imprudence will not calculate 
its income, and vanity exaggerates its own powers, and the fault is laid 
upon that tyrant of a sister kingdom. The whole country is filled with 
such failures; swaggering beginnings that could not be carried 
through ; grand enterprises begun dashingly, and ending in shabby 
compromises or downright ruin. 

I have said something in praise of the manners of the Cork ladies : 
in regard of the gentlemen, a stranger too must remark the extraordi- 
nary degree of literary taste and talent amongst them, and the wit and 



78 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

vivacity of their conversation. The love for literature seems to an 
Englishman doubly curious. What, generally speaking, do a company 
of grave gentlemen and ladies in Baker Street know about it ? Who 
ever reads books in the City, or how often does one hear them talked 
about at a Club ? The Cork citizens are the most book-loving men I 
ever met. The town has sent to England a number of literary men, 
of reputation too, and is not a little proud of their fame. Everybody 
seemed to know what Maginn was doing, and that Father Prout had 
a third volume ready, and what was Mr. Croker's last article in the 
Quarterly. The young clerks and shopmen seemed as much mi fait 
as their employers, and many is the conversation I heard about the 
merits of this writer or that — Dickens, Ains worth. Lover, Lever. 

I think, in walking the streets, and looking at the ragged urchins 
crowding there, every Englishman must remark that the superiority 
of intelligence is here, and not with us. I never saw such a collection 
of bright-eyed, wild, clever, eager faces. Mr. Maclise has carried 
away a number of them in his memory ; and the lovers of his 
admirable pictures will find more than one Munster conntenance 
under a helmet in company of Macbeth, or in a slashed doublet along- 
side of Prince Hamlet, or in the very midst of Spain in company with 
Sefior Gil Bias. Gil Bias himself came from Cork, and not from 
Oviedo. 

I listened to two boys almost in rags : they were lolling over 
the quay balustrade, and talking about one of the Ptolemys ! and 
talking very well too. One of them had been reading in " Rollin," 
and was detailing his information with a great deal of eloquence and 
fire. Another day, walking in the Mardyke, I followed three boys, 
not half so well dressed as London errand-boys : one was telling the 
other about Captain Ross's voyages, and spoke with as much bright- 
ness and intelligence as the best-read gentleman's son in England 
could do. He was as much of a gentleman too, the ragged young 
student ; his manner as good, though perhaps more eager and 
emphatic ; his language was extremely rich, too, and eloquent. Does 
the reader remember his school-days, when half-a-dozen lads in the 
bedrooms took it by turns to tell stories? how poor the language 
generally was, and how exceedingly poor the imagination ! Both of 
those ragged Irish lads had the making of gentlemen, scholars, orators, 
in them. Apropos of love of reading, let me mention here a Dublin 
story. Doctor Lever, the celebrated author of " Harry Lorrequer," went 
into Dycer's stables to buy a horse. The groom who brought the 
animal out, directly he heard who the gentleman was, came out and 



PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. 



79 



touched his cap, and pointed to a little book in his pocket in a pink 
cover. "/ can't do without it ^ sir^^ says the man. It was "Harry 
Lorrequer." I wonder does any one of Mr. Rymell's grooms take in 
" Pickwick," or would they have any curiosity to see Mr. Dickens, 
should he pass that way 1 

The Corkagians are eager for a Munster University ; asking for, 
and having a very good right to, the same privilege which has been 
granted to the chief city of the North of Ireland. It would not fail 
of being a great benefit to the city and to the country too, which 
would have no need to go so far as Dublin for a school of letters and 
medicine ; nor, Whig and Catholic for the most part, to attend a 
Tory and Protestant University. The establishing of an open college 
in Munster would bring much popularity to any Ministry that should 
accord such a boon. People would cry out, " Popery and Infidelity," 
doubtless, as they did when the London University was established ; 
as the same party in Spain would cry out, "Atheism and Heresy.'' 
But the time, thank God ! is gone by in England when it was 
necessary to legislate for themj and Sir Robert Peel, in giving his 
adherence to the National Education scheme, has sanctioned the 
principle of which this so much longed-for college would only be a 
consequence. 

The medical charities and hospitals are said to be very well 
arranged, and the medical men of far more than ordinary skill. Other 
public institutions are no less excellent. I was taken over the Lunatic 
Asylum, where everything v/as conducted with admirable comfort, 
cleanliness, and kindness ; and as for the county goal, it is so neat, 
spacious, and comfortable, that we can only pray to see every cottager 
in the country as cleanly, well lodged, and well fed as the convicts are. 
They get a pound of bread and a pint of milk twice a day : there must 
be millions of people in this wretched country, to whom such food 
would be a luxury that their utmost labours can never by possibility 
procure for them ; and in going over this admirable institution, where 
everybody is cleanly, healthy, and well-clad, I could not but think of 
the rags and filth of the horrid starvation market before mentioned ; 
so that the prison seemed almost a sort of premium for vice. But the 
people like their freedom, such as it is, and prefer to starve and be 
ragged as they list. They will not go to the poor-houses, except at the 
greatest extremity, and leave them on the slightest chance of existence 
elsewhere. 

Walking away from this palace of a prison, you pass amidst all 
sorts of delightful verdure, cheerful gardens, and broad green luscious 



So THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK, 

pastures, down to the beautiful River Lee. On one side, the river 
shines away towards the city with its towers and purple steeples ; on 
the other it is broken by little waterfalls and bound in by blue hills, an 
old castle towering in the distance, and innumerable parks and villas 
lying along the pleasant wooded banks. How beautiful the scene is, 
how rich and how happy ! Yonder, in the old Mardyke Avenue, you 
hear the voices of a score of children, and along the bright green 
meadows, where the cows are feeding, the gentle shadows of the 
clouds go playing over the grass. Who can look at such a charming 
scene but with a thankful swelling heart .'* 

In the midst of your pleasure, three beggars have hobbled up, and 
are howling supplications to the Lord. One is old and blind, and so 
diseased and hideous, that straightway all the pleasure of the sight 
round about vanishes from you — that livid ghastly face interposing 
between you and it. And so it is throughout the south and west of 
Ireland ; the traveller is haunted by the face of the popular starvation. 
It is not the exception, it is the condition of the people. In this fairest 
and richest of countries, men are suffering and starving by milHons. 
There are thousands of them at this minute stretched in the sunshine 
at their cabin doors with no work, scarcely any food, no hope seem- 
ingly. Strong countrymen are lying in bed '■^ for the Juuiger " — because 
a man lying on his back does not need so much food as a person a- 
foot. Many of them have torn up the unripe potatoes from their 
little gardens, to exist now, and must look to winter, when they shall 
have to suffer starvation and cold too. The epicurean, and traveller 
for pleasure, . had better travel anywhere than here : where there are 
miseries that one does not dare to think of ; where one is always feel- 
ing how helpless pity is, and how hopeless relief, and is perpetually 
made ashamed of being happy. 

I have just been strolling up a pretty little height called Grattan's 
Hill, that overlooks the town and the river, and where the artist that 
comes Cork-wards may find many subjects for his pencil. There is a 
kind of pleasure-ground at the top of this eminence— a broad walk 
that draggles up to a ruined wall, with a ruined niche in it, and a 
battered stone bench. On the side that shelves down to the water are 
some beeches, and opposite them a row of houses from which you see 
one of the prettiest prospects possible — the shining river with the craft 
along the quays, and the busy city in the distance, the active little 
steamers puffing away towards Cove, the farther bank crowned with 
rich woods, and pleasant-looking country-houses : perhaps they are 



SUBURBAN SCENES. 8i 

tumbling, rickety and ruinous, as those houses close by us, but you 
can't see the ruin from here. 

What a strange air of forlorn gaiety there is about the place ! — 
the sky itself seems as if it did not know whether to laugh or cry, so 
full is it of clouds and sunshine. Little fat, ragged, smiling children 
are clambering about the rocks, and sitting on mossy door-steps, 
tending other children yet smaller, fatter, and more dirty. " Stop till 
I get you a posy " (pronounced pawawawsee), cries one urchin to 
another. " Tell me who is it ye love, Jooly ? " exclaims another, 
cuddling a red-faced infant with a very dirty nose. More of the same 
race are perched about the summer-house, and two wenches with 
large purple feet are flapping some carpets in the air. It is a wonder 
the carpets will bear this kind of treatment at all, and do not be off at 
once to mingle with the elements : I never saw things that hung to 
life by such a frail thread. 

This dismal pleasant place is a suburb of the second city in Ireland, 
and one of the most beautiful spots about the town. What a prim, 
bustling, active, green-railinged, tea-gardened, gravel-walked place 
would it have been in the five-hundredth town in England ! — but you 
see the people can be quite as happy in the rags and without the paint, 
and I hear a great deal more heartiness and affection from these 
children than from their fat little brethren across the Channel. 

If a man wanted to study ruins, here is a house close at hand, not 
forty years old no doubt, but yet as completely gone to wreck as 
Netley Abbey. It is quite curious to study that house ; and a pretty 
ruinous fabric of improvidence, extravagance, happiness, and disaster 
may the imagination build out of it ! In the first place, the owners 
did not wait to finish it before they went to inhabit it ! This is 
written in just such another place ; a handsome drawing-room with a 
good carpet, a lofty marble mantelpiece, and no paper to the walls. 
The door is prettily painted white and blue, and though not six weeks 
old, a great piece of the wood-work is off already (Peggy uses it to 
prevent the door from banging to) ; and there are some fine chinks 
in every one of the panels, by which my neighbour may see all my 
doings. 

A couple of score of years, and this house will be just like yonder 
place on Grattan's Hill. 

Like a young prodigal, the house begins to use its constitution too 
early ; and when it should yet (in the shape of carpenters and painters) 
have all its masters and guardians to watch and educate it, my house 
on Grattan's Hill must be a man at once, and enjoy all the privileges 

c 



82 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

of strong health ! I would lay a guinea they were making punch in 
that house before they could keep the rain out of it ! that they had a 
dinner-party and ball before the floors were firm or the wainscots 
painted, and a fine tester-bed in the best room, where my lady might 
catch cold in state, in the midst of yawning chimneys, creaking 
window-sashes, and smoking plaster. 

Now look at the door of the coach-house, with its first coat of 
paint seen yet, and a variety of patches to keep the feeble barrier 
together. The loft was arched once, but a great corner has tumbled 
off at one end, leaving a gash that unites the windows with the coach- 
house door. Several of the arch-stones are removed, and the whole 
edifice is about as rambling and disorderly as — as the arrangement of 
this book, say. Very tall tufts of mouldy moss are on the drawing- 
room windows, with long white heads of grass. As I am sketching 
this — hoiik ! — a great lean sow comes trampling through the slush 
within the court-yard, breaks down the flimsy apparatus of rattling 
boards and stones which had passed for the gate, and walks with 
her seven squeaking little ones to disport on the grass on the hill. 

The drawing-room of the tenement mentioned just now, with its 
pictures, and pulleyless windows and lockless doors, was tenanted by 
a friend who lodged there with a sick wife and a couple of little 
children ; one of whom was an infant in arms. It is not, however, 
the lodger — who is an Englishman— but the kind landlady and her 
family who may well be described here — for their like are hardly to be 
found on the other side of the Channel. Mrs. Fagan is a young 
widow who has seen better days, and that portrait over the grand 
mantelpiece is the picture of her husband that is gone, a handsome 
young man, and well to do at one time as a merchant. But the widow 
(she is as pretty, as lady-like, as kind, and as neat as ever widow could 
be,) has little left to five upon but the rent of her lodgings and her 
furniture ; of which we have seen the best in the drawing-room. 

She has three fine children of her own : there is Minny, and Katey, 
and Patsey, and they occupy indifferently the dining-room on the 
ground floor or the kitchen opposite ; where in the midst of a great 
smoke sits an old nurse, by a copper of potatoes which is always 
bubbling and full. Patsey swallows quantities of them, that's clear : 
his cheeks are as red and shining as apples, and when he roars, you 
are sure that his lungs are in the finest condition. Next door to the 
kitchen is the pantry, and there is a bucketful of the before-mentioned 
fruit, and a grand service of china for dinner and dessert. The kind 
young widow shows them with no little pride, and says with reason 



A FAMILY SKETCH. 83 

that there are few lodging-houses in Cork that can match such china 
as that. They are relics of the happy old times when Fagan kept his 
gig and horse, doubtless, and had his friends to dine — the happy 
prosperous days which she has exchanged for poverty and the sad 
black gown. 

Patsey, Minny, and Katey have made friends with the little 
English people upstairs ; the elder of whom, in the course of a month, 
has as fine a Munster brogue as ever trolled over the lips of any born 
Corkagian. The old nurse carries out the whole united party to walk, 
with the exception of the English baby, that jumps about in the arms 
of a countrywoman of her own. That is, unless one of the four Miss 
Fagans takes her ; for four of them there are, four otJier Miss Fagans, 
from eighteen downwards to fourteen : — handsome, fresh, lively, danc- 
ing, bouncing girls. You may always see two or three of them smiling 
at the parlour-window, and they laugh and turn away their heads 
when any young fellow looks at and admires them. 

Now, it stands to reason that a young widow of five-and-twenty 
can't be the mother of four young ladies of eighteen downwards ; and, 
if anybody wants to know how they come to be living with the poor 
widow their cousin, the answer is, they are on a visit. Peggy the 
maid says their papa is a gentleman of property, and can " spend his 
eight hundred a year." 

Why don't they remain with the old gentleman then, instead of 
quartering on the poor young widow, who has her own little mouths 
to feed ? The reason is, the old gentleman has gone and married Ms 
cook J and the daughters have quitted him in a body, refusing to sit 
down to dinner with a person who ought by rights to be in the 
kitchen. The whole family (the Fagans are of good family) take the 
quarrel up, and here are the young people under shelter of the widow. 

Four merrier tender-hearted girls are not to be found in all 
Ireland ; and the only subject of contention amongst them is, which 
shall have the English baby ; they are nursing it, and singing to it, 
and dandling it by turns all day long. When they are not singing to 
the baby, they are singing to an old piano : such an old wiry, 
jingling, wheezy piano ! It has plenty of work, playing jigs and song 
accompaniments between meals, and acting as a sideboard at dinner. 
I am not sure that it is at rest at night either ; but have a shrewd 
suspicion that it is turned into a four-post bed. And for the following 
reason : — 

Every afternoon, at four o'clock, you see a tall old gentleman 
walking leisurely to the house. He is dressed in a long great-coat 



84 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

with huge pockets, and in the huge pockets are sure to be some big 
apples for all the children— the English child amongst the rest, and 
she generally has the biggest one. At seven o'clock, you are sure to 
hear a deep voice shouting " Paggy ! " in an awful tone— it is the old 
gentleman calling for his " materials ; " which Peggy brings without 
any farther ado ; and a glass of punch is made, no doubt, for every- 
body. Then the party separates : the children and the old nurse 
have long since trampled upstairs ; Peggy has the kitchen for her 
sleeping-apartment, and the four young ladies make it out somehow 
in the back drawing-room. As for the old gentleman, he reposes in 
the parlour ; and it must be somewhere about the piano, for there is 
no furniture in the room except that, a table, a few old chairs, a work- 
box and a couple of albums. 

The English girl's father met her in the street one day, talking 
confidentially with a tall old gentleman in a great-coat. " Who's your 
friend ? " says the Englishman afterwards to the little girl. '' Don't 
you know him, papa?" said the child in the purest brogue. "Don't 
you know him ?— That's Uncle James!" And so it was : in this 
kind, poor, generous, bare-backed house, the English child found a set 
of new relations ; little rosy brothers and sisters to play with, kind 
women to take the place of the almost dying mother, a good old 
Uncle James to bring her home apples and care for her — one and all 
ready to share their little pittance with her, and to give her a place in 
their simple friendly hearts. God Almighty bless the widow and her 
mite, and all the kind souls under her roof ! 

How much goodness and generosity — how much purity, fine 
feeling — nay, happiness — may dwell amongst the poor whom we have 
been just looking at ! Here, thank God, is an instance of this happy 
and cheerful poverty : and it is good to look, when one can, at the 
heart that beats under the threadbare coat, as well as the tattered old 
garment itself. Well, please heaven, some of those people whom we 
have been looking at, are as good, and not much less happy : but 
though they are accustomed to their want, the stranger does not 
reconcile himself to it quickly ; and I hope no Irish reader will be 
offended at my speaking of this poverty, not with scorn or ill-feeling, 
but with hearty sympathy and good-will. 



One word more regarding the Widow Fagan's house. When 
Peggy brought in coals for the drawing-room fire, she carried them 



A FAMILY SKETCH, 85 

— in what do you think ? " In a coal-scuttle, to be sure/' says the 
English reader, down on you as sharp as a needle. 

No, you clever Englishman, it wasn't a coal-scuttle. 

"Well, then, it was in a fire-shovel," says that brightest of wits, 
guessing again. 

No, it wasiiH a fire-shovel, you heaven-born genius ; and you 
might guess from this until Mrs. Snooks called you up to coffee, and 
you would never find out. It was in something which I have already 
described in Mrs. Fagan's pantry. 

" Oh, I have you now, it was the bucket where the potatoes were ; 
the thlatternly wetch ! " says Snooks. 

Wrong again ! Peggy brought up the coals— in a china plate ! 

Snooks turns quite white with surprise, and almost chokes him- 
self with his port. " Well," says he, " of all the wiun countwith that 
I ever wead of, hang me if Ireland ithn't the witnimetht. Coalth in a 
plate ! Mawyann, do you hear that? In Ireland they alwayth thend 
up their coalth in a plate ! " 



86 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK, 



CHAPTER VIII. 

FROM CORK TO BANTRY ; WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE CITY OF 
SKIBBEREEN. 



HAT light four-inside, 
four-horse coach, the 
" Skibbereen Persever- 
ance," brought me fifty- 
two miles to day, for the 
sumofthree-and-sixpence, 
through a country which 
is, as usual, somewhat 
difficult to describe. We 
issued out of Cork by the 
western road, in which, 
as the Guide-book says, 
there is something very 
imposing. "The magni- 
ficence of the county 
court-house, the extent, 
solidity, and characteristic 
sternness of the county 
gaol," were visible to us 
when, turning away southward from the pleasant 
banks of the stream, the road took us towards Bandon, through a 
country that is bare and ragged-looking, but yet green and pretty ; 
and it always seems to me, like the people, to look cheerful in spite 
of its wretchedness, or, more correctly, to look tearful and cheerful 
at the same time. 

The coach, like almost every other public vehicle I have seen in 
Ireland, was full to the brim and over it. What can send these rest- 
less people travelling and hurrying about from place to place as they 
do ? I have heard one or two gentlemen hint that they had " busi- 
ness " at this place or that ; and found afterwards that one was going 
a couple of score of miles to look at a mare, another to examine a 




for a few minutes 



THE VITRIOL-THROWERS. 87 

setter-dog, and so on. I did not make it my business to ask on what 
errand the gentlemen on the coach were bound ; though two of them, 
seeing an Enghshman, very good-naturedly began chalking out a route 
for him to take, and showing a sort of interest in his affairs which is 
not with us generally exhibited. The coach, too, seemed to have the 
elastic hospitality of some Irish houses ; it accommodated an almost 
impossible number. For the greater part of the journey the little 
guard sat on the roof among the carpet-bags, holding in one hand a 
huge tambour-frame, in the other a band-box marked "Foggarty, 
Hatter." (What is there more ridiculous in the name of Foggarty than 
in that of Smith ? and yet, had Smith been the name, I never should 
have laughed at or remarked it.) Presently by his side clambered a 
green-coated policeman with his carbine, and we had a talk about the 
vitriol-throwers at Cork, and the sentence just passed upon them. 
The populace has decidedly taken part with the vitriol-throwers : 
parties of dragoons were obliged to surround the avenues of the 
court ; and the judge who sentenced them was abused as he entered 
his carriage, and called an old villain, and many other opprobrious 
names. 

This case the reader very likely remembers. A saw-mill was 
established at Cork, by which some four hundred sawyers were 
thrown out of employ. In order to deter the proprietors of this and 
all other mills from using such instruments further, the sawyers 
determined to execute a terrible vengeance, and cast lots among 
themselves which of their body should fling vitriol into the faces of 
the mill-owners. The men who were chosen by the lot were to 
execute this horrible office on pain of death, and did so, — frightfully 
burning and blinding one of the gentlemen owning the mill. Great 
rewards were offered for the apprehension of the criminals, and at last 
one of their own body came forward as an approver, and the four 
principal actors in this dreadful outrage were sentenced to be trans- 
ported for life. Crowds of the ragged admirers of these men were 
standing round " the magnificent county court-house '' as we passed 
the building. Ours is a strange life indeed. What a history of 
poverty and barbarity, and crime and even kindness, was that by 
which we passed before the magnificent county court-house, at eight 
miles an hour ! What a chapter might a philosopher write on them ! 
Look yonder at those two hundred ragged fellow- subjects of yours : 
they are kind, good, pious, brutal, starving. If the priest tells them, 
there is scarce any penance they will not perform : there is scarcely 
any pitch of misery which they have not been known to endure, nor 



88 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK, 

any degree of generosity of which they are not capable : but if a man 
comes among these people, and can afford to take land over their 
heads, or if he invents a machine which can work more economically 
than their labour, they will shoot the man down without mercy, 
murder him, or put him to horrible tortures, and glory almost m what 
they do. There stand the men ; they are only separated from us by 
a few paces : they are as fond of their mothers and children as we 
are ; their gratitude for small kindnesses shown to them is extra- 
ordinary ; they are Christians as we are ; but interfere with their 
interests, and they will murder you without pity. 

It is not revenge so much which these poor fellows take, as a 
brutal justice of their own. Now, will it seem a paradox to say, in 
regard to them and their murderous system, that the way to put an 
end to the latter is to kill them no more ? Let the priest be able to 
go amongst them and say. The law holds a man's life so sacred that 
it will on no accoimt take it away. No man, nor body of men, has 
a right to meddle with human life : not the Commons of England 
any more than the Commons of Tipperary. This may cost two or 
three lives, probably, until such time as the system may come to 
be known and understood ; but which will be the greatest economy 
of blood in the end 1 

By this time the vitriol-men were long passed away, and we began 
next to talk about the Cork and London steamboats ; which are 
made to pay, on account of the number of paupers whom the boats 
bring over from London at the charge of that city. The passengers 
found here, as in everything else almost which I have seen as yet, 
another instance of the injury which England inflicts on them. "As 
long as these men are strong and can work," says one, " you keep 
them ; when they are in bad health, you fling them upon us." Nor 
could I convince him that the agricultural gentlemen were perfectly 
free to stay at home if they liked : that we did for them what was 
done for English paupers — sent them, namely, as far as possible on 
the way to their parishes ; nay, that some of them (as I have seen 
with my own eyes) actually saved a bit of money during the harvest, 
and took this cheap way of conveying it and themselves to their 
homes again. But nothing would convince the gentleman that there 
was not some wicked scheming on the part of the English in 
the business ; and, indeed, I find upon almost every other sub- 
ject a peevish and puerile suspiciousness which is worthy of France 
itself. 

By this time we came to a pretty village called Innishannon, upon 



BANDON. 89 

the noble banks of the Bandon river ; leading for three miles by a 
great number of pleasant gentlemen's seats to Bandon town. A good 
number of large mills were on the banks of the stream ; and the chief 
part of them, as in Carlow, useless. One mill we saw was too small 
for the owner's great speculations ; and so he built another and 
larger one : the big mill cost him 10,000/., for which his brothers 
went security ; and, a lawsuit being given against the mill-owner, the 
two mills stopped, the two brothers went off, and yon fine old house, 
in the style of Anne, with terraces and tall chimneys— one of the 
oldest country-houses I have seen in Ireland — is now inhabited by the 
natural son of the mill-owner, who has more such interesting progeny. 
Then we came to a tall, comfortable house, in a plantation ; opposite 
to which was a stone castle, in its shrubberies on the other side of 
the road. The tall house in the plantation shot the opposite side of 
the road in a duel, and nearly killed him ; on which the opposite side 
of the road built this castle, zVz order to plague the tall house. They 
are good friends now ; but the opposite side of the road ruined him- 
self in building his house. I asked, " Is the house finished?" — "^ 
good deal of it Is" was the answer. — And then we came to a brewery, 
about which was a similar story of extravagance and ruin ; but, 
whether before or after entering Bandon, does not matter. 

We did not, it appears, pass through the best part of Bandon : I 
looked along one side of the houses in the long street through which 
we went, to see if there was a window without a broken pane of glass, 
and can declare on my conscience that every single window had 
three broken panes. There we changed horses, in a market-place, 
surrounded, as usual, by beggars ; then we passed through a suburb 
still more wretched and ruinous than the first street, and which, in 
very large letters, is called DOYLE street : and the next stage was at 
a place called Dunmanway. 

Here it was market-day, too, and, as usual, no lack of attendants : 
swarms of peasants in their blue cloaks, squatting by their stalls here 
and there. There is a little miserable old market-house, where a ie\x 
women were selling buttermilk ; another, bullocks' hearts, liver, and 
such like scraps of meat ; another had dried mackerel on a board ; 
and plenty of people huckstering of course. Round the coach came 
crowds of raggery, and blackguards fawning for money. I wonder 
who gives them any ! I have never seen any one give yet ; and were 
they not even so numerous that it would be impossible to gratify them 
all, there is something in iheir cant and supplications to the Lord so 
disgusting to me, that I could not give a halfpenny. 



90 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



In regard of pretty faces, male or female, this road is very un- 
favourable. I have not seen one for fifty miles ; though, as it was 
market-day all along the road, we have had the opportunity to 
examine vast numbers of countenances. The women are, for the 
most part, stunted, short, with flat Tartar faces ; and the men no 
handsomer. Every woman has bare legs, of course ; and as the 



L- 



^\x \\ r . .',1 







weather is fine, they are sitting outside their cabins, with the pig, and 
the geese, and the children sporting around. 

Before many doors we saw a little flock of these useful animals, 
and the family pig almost everywhere : you might see him browsing 
and poking along the hedges, his fore and hind leg attached with a 
wisp of hay to check his propensity to roaming. Here and there- 
were a small brood of turkeys ; now and then a couple of sheep or a 
single one grazing upon a scanty field, of which the chief crop seemed 
to be thistles and stones ; and, by the side of the cottage, the potato- 
field always. 

The character of the landscape for the most part is bare and sad ; 
except here and there in the neighbourhood of the towns, where 
people have taken a fancy to plant, and where nature has helped 
them, as it almost always will in this country. If we saw a field with 
a good hedge to it, v/e were sure to see a good crop inside. Many a 



THE ROAD FROM CORK TO BANTRY. 91 

field was there that had neither crop nor hedge. We passed by 
and over many pretty streams, running bright through brilHant 
emerald meadows : and I saw a thousand charming pictures, which 
want as yet an Irish Berghem. A bright road winding up a hill ; on 
it a country cart, with its load, stretching a huge shadow ; the before- 
mentioned emerald pastures and silver rivers in the foreground ; a 
noble sweep of hills rising up from them, and contrasting their magni- 
ficent purple with the green ; in the extreme distance the clear cold 
outline of some far-off mountains, and the white clouds tumbled 
about in the blue sky overhead. It has no doubt struck all persons 
who love to look at nature, how different the skies are in different 
countries. I fancy Irish or French clouds are as characteristic as 
Irish or French landscapes. It would be well to have a daguerreo- 
type and get a series of each. Some way beyond Dunmanway the 
road takes us through a noble savage country of rocks and heath. 
Nor must the painter forget long black tracts of bog here and there, 
and the water glistening brightly at the places where the turf has 
been cut away. Add to this, and chiefly by the banks of rivers, a 
ruined old castle or two : some were built by the Danes, it is 
said. The O'Connors, the O'Mahonys, the O'Driscolls, were lords of 
many others, and their ruined towers may be seen here and along 
the sea. 

Near Dunmanway that great coach, "The Skibbereen Industry," 
dashed by us at seven miles an hour ; a wondrous vehicle : there 
were gaps between every one of the panels ; you could see daylight 
through-and-through it. Like our machine, it was full, with three 
complementary sailors on the roof, as little harness as possible to the 
horses, and as long stages as horses can well endure ; ours were each 
eighteen-mile stages. About eight miles from Skibbereen a one-' 
horse car met us, and carried away an offshoot of passengers to 
Bantry. Five passengers and their luggage, and a very wild, steep 
road : all this had one poor little pony to overcome ! About the 
towns there were some show of gentlemen's cars, smart and well 
appointed, and on the road great numbers of country carts ; an 
army of them met us coming from Skibbereen, and laden with grey 
sand for manure. 

Before you enter the city of Skibbereen, the tall new poor-house 
presents itself to the eye of the traveller; of the common model, 
being a bastard-Gothic edifice, with a profusion of cottage-ornee (is 
cottage mascuHne or feminine in French ?)— of cottage-orne'e roofs, 
and pinnacles, and insolent-looking stacks of chimnevs. It is built for 



92 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

900 people, but as yet not more than 400 have been induced to live 
in it ; the beggars preferring the freedom of their precarious trade to 
the dismal certainty within its walls. Next we come to the chapel, a 
very large, respectable-looking building of dark-grey stone ; and pre- 
sently, behold, by the crowd of blackguards in waiting, "The Skib- 
bereen Perseverance " has found its goal, and you are inducted to the 
" hotel " opposite. 

Some gentlemen were at the coach, besides those of lower degree. 
Here was a fat fellow with large whiskers, a geranium, and a cigar ; 
yonder a tall handsome old man that I would swear was a dragoon 
on half-pay. He had a little cap, a Taglioni coat, a pair of beautiful 
spaniels, and a pair of knee-breeches which showed a very handsome 
old leg ; and his object seemed to be to invite everybody to dinner 
as they got off the coach. No doubt he has seen the " Skibbereen 
Perseverance " come in ever since it was a " Perseverance." It is 
wonderful to think what will interest men in prisons or country 
towns ! 

There is a dirty coffee-room, with a strong smell of whisky ; 
indeed three young " materialists " are employed at the moment . 
and I hereby beg to offer an apology to three other gentlemen — the 
captain, another, and the gentleman of the geranium, who had caught 
hold of a sketching-stool which is my property, and were stretching it, 
and sitting upon it, and wondering, and talking of it, when the owner 
came in, and they bounced off to their seats like so many school- 
boys. Dirty as the place was, this was no reason why it should not 
produce an exuberant dinner of trout and Kerry mutton ; after which 
Dan the waiter, holding up a dingy decanter, asks how much whisky 
I'd have. 

That calculation need not be made here ; and if a man sleeps well, 
has he any need to quarrel with the appointments of his bedroom, 
and spy out the deficiencies of the land .? As it was Sunday, it was 
impossible for me to say what sort of shops "the active and flourishing 
town " of Skibbereen contains. There were some of the architectural 
sort, viz, with gilt letters and cracked mouldings, and others into 
which I thought I saw the cows walking ; but it was only into their 
little cribs and paddocks at the back of the shops. There is a trim 
Wesleyan chapel, without any broken windows ; a neat church stand- 
ing modestly on one side. The Lower Street crawls along the river 
to a considerable extent, having by- streets and boulevards of cabins 
here and there. 

The people came flocking into the place by hundreds, and you 



SKIBBEREEN, 93 

saw their blue cloaks dotting the road and the bare open plains 
beyond. The men came with shoes and stockings to-day, the 
women all bare-legged, and many of them might be seen washing 
their feet in the stream before they went up to the chapel. The 
street seemed to be lined on either side with blue cloaks, squatting 
along the doorways as is their wont. Among these, numberless cows 
were walking to and fro, and pails of milk passing, and here and there 
a hound or two went stalking about. Dan the waiter says they are 
hunted by the handsome old captain who was yesterday inviting 
everybody to dinner. 

Anybody at eight o'clock of a Sunday morning in summer may 
behold the above scene from a bridge just outside the town. He may 
add to it the river, with one or two barges lying idle upon it ; a flag 
flying at what looks like a custom-house ; bare country all around ; 
and the chapel before him, with a swarm of the dark figures round 
about it. 

I went into it, not without awe (for, as I confessed before, I always 
feel a sort of tremor on going into a CathoHc place of worship : the 
candles, and altars, and mysteries, the priest and his robes, and nasal 
chaunting, and wonderful genuflexions, will frighten me as long as I 
live). The chapel-yard was filled with men and women : a couple of 
shabby old beadles were at the gate, with copper shovels to collect 
money ; and inside the chapel four or five hundred people were on 
their knees, and scores more of the blue-mantles came in, dropping 
their curtsies as they entered, and then taking their places on the flags. 

And now the pangs of hunger beginning to make themselves felt, 
it became necessary for your humble servant (after making several 
useless applications to a bell, which properly declined to work on 
Sundays) to make a personal descent to the inn-kitchen, where was 
not a bad study for a painter. It was a huge room, with a peat fire 
burning, and a staircase walking up one side of it, on which stair was 
a damsel in a partial though by no means picturesque dishabille. 
The cook had just come in with a great frothing pail of milk, and sat 
with her arms folded ; the ostler's boy sat dangling his legs from the 
table; the ostler was dandling a noble httle boy of a year old, at 
whom Mrs. Cook likewise grinned delighted. Here, too, sat Mr. Dan 
the waiter ; and no wonder the breakfast was delayed, for all three of 
these worthy domestics seemed delighted with the infant. 

He was handed over to the gentleman's arms for the space of 
thirty seconds ; the gentleman being the father of a family, and of 
course an amateur. 



94 1HE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

" Say Dan for the gentleman," says the delighted cook. 

" Dada," says the baby ; at which the assembly grinned with joy : 
and Dan promised I should have my .breakfast " in a hurry." 

But of all the wonderful things to be seen in Skibbereen, Dan's 
pantry is the most wonderful : every article within is a makeshift, and 
has been ingeniously perverted from its original destination. Here lie 
bread, blacking, fresh-butter, tallow-candles, dirty knives— all in the 
same cigar-box with snuff, milk, cold bacon, brown-sugar, broken 
teacups and bits of soap. No pen can describe that establishment, as 
no English imagination could have conceived it. But lo ! the sky has 
cleared after a furious fall of rain — (in colnpliance with Dan's state- 
ment to that effect, " that the weather would be fine") — and a car is 
waiting to carry us to Loughine. 

Although the description of Loughine can make but a poor figure 
in a book, the ride thither is well worth the traveller's short labour. 
You pass by one of the cabin-streets out of the town into a country 
which for a mile is rich with grain, though bare of trees ; then through 
a boggy bleak district, from which you enter into a sort of sea of 
rocks, with patches of herbage here and there. Before the traveller, 
almost all the way, is a huge pile of purple mountain, on which, as 
one comes nearer, one perceives numberless waves and breaks, as you 
see small waves on a billow in the sea ; then clambering up a hill, we 
look down upon a bright green flat of land, with the lake beyond it, 
girt round by grey melancholy hills. The water may be a mile in 
extent ; a cabin tops the mountain here and there ; gentlemen have 
erected one or two anchorite pleasure-houses on the banks, as cheerful 
as a summer-house would be on Salisbury Plain. I felt not sorry to have 
seen this lonely lake, and still happier to leave it. There it Hes with 
crags all round it, in the midst of desolate plains : it escapes somewhere 
to the sea ; its waters are salt : half-a-dozen boats lie here and there 
upon its banks, and we saw a small crew of boys plashing about and 
swimming in it, laughing and yelling. It seemed a shame to disturb 
the silence so. 

The crowd of swaggering " gents " (I don't know the corresponding 
phrase in the Anglo-Irish vocabulary to express a shabby dandy) 
awaiting the Cork mail, which kindly goes twenty miles out of its way 
to accommodate the town of Skibbereen, was quite extraordinary. 
The little street was quite blocked up with shabby gentlemen, and 
shabby beggars, awaiting this daily phenomenon. The man who had 
driven us to Loughine did not fail to ask for his fee as driver ; and 
then, having received it, came forward in his capacity of boots and 



THE BANTRY ROAD. 95 

received another remuneration. The ride is desolate, bare, and yet 
beautiful. There are a set of hills that keep one company the whole 
way ; they Avere partially hidden in a grey sky, which flung a general 
hue of melancholy too over the green country through which we 
passed. There was only one wretched village along the road, but no 
lack of population : ragged people who issued from their cabins as 
the coach passed, or were sitting by the wayside. Everybody seems 
sitting by the wayside here : one never sees this general repose in 
England — a sort of ragged lazy contentment. All the children seem 
to be on the watch for the coach ; waited very knowingly and carefully 
their opportunity, and then hung on by scores behind. What a 
pleasure to run over flinty roads with bare feet, to be whipped off, and 
to walk back to the cabin again ! These were very different cottages 
to those neat ones I had seen in Kildare. The wretchedness of them 
is quite painful to look at ; many of the potato-gardens were half dug 
up, and it is only the first week in August, near three months before 
the potato is ripe and at full growth ; and the winter still six months 
away. There were chapels occasionally, and smart new-built churches 
— one of them has a congregation of ten souls, the coachman told me. 
Would it not be better that the clergyman should receive them in his 
room, and that the church-building money should be bestowed other- 
wise? 

At length, after winding up all sorts of dismal hills speckled with 
wretched hovels, a ruinous mill every now and then, black bog-lands, 
and small winding streams, breaking here and there into little falls, 
we come upon some ground well tilled and planted, and descending 
(at no small risk from stumbling horses) a bleak long hill, we see the 
water before us, and turning to the right by the handsome little park 
of Lord Bearhaven, enter Bantry. The harbour is beautiful. Small 
mountains in green undulations rising on the opposite side ; great 
grey ones farther back; a pretty island in the midst of the water, 
which is wonderfully bright and calm. A handsome yacht, and two 
or three vessels with their Sunday colours out, were lying in the bay. 
It looked like a seaport scene at a theatre, gay, cheerful, neat, and 
picturesque. At a little distance the town, too, is very pretty. There 
are some smart houses on the quays, a handsome court-house as usual, 
a fine large hotel, and plenty of people flocking round the wonderful 
coach. 

The town is most picturesquely situated, climbing up a wooded 
hill, with numbers of neat cottages here and there, an ugly church 
with an air of pretension, and a large grave Roman Catholic chapel 



96 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

the highest point of the place. The Main Street was as usual thronged 
with the squatting blue cloaks, carrying on their eager trade of butter- 
milk and green apples, and such cheap wares. With the exception of 
this street and the quay, with their whitewashed and slated houses, 
it is a town of cabins. The wretchedness of some of them is quite 
curious : I tried to make a sketch of a row which lean against an old 
wall, and are built upon a rock that tumbles about in the oddest and 
most fantastic shapes, with a brawling waterfall dashing down a 
channel in the midst. These are, it appears, the beggars' houses: any 
one may build a lodge against that wall, rent-free ; and such places 
were never seen! As for drawing them, it was in vain to try; one 
might as well make a sketch of a bundle of rags. An ordinary pigsty 
in England is really more comfortable. Most of them were not six 
feet long or five feet high, built of stones huddled together, a hole 
being left for the people to creep in at, a ruined thatch to keep out 
some little portion of the rain. The occupiers of these places sat at 
their doors in tolerable contentment, or the children came down and 
washed their feet in the water. I declare I believe a Hottentot kraal 
has more comforts in it: even to write of the place makes one 
unhappy, and the words move slow. But in the midst of all this 
misery there is an air of actual cheerfulness ; and go but a few score 
yards off, and these wretched hovels lying together look really 
picturesque and pleasing. 



A PICTURESQUE COUNTRY. 



97 



CHAPTER IX. 

•RAINY DAYS AT GLENGARIFF. 



SMART two-horse car takes 
the traveller thrice a week 
from Bantry to Killarney, by 
way of Glengariff and Ken- 
mare. Unluckily, the rain 
was pouring down furiously 
as we passed to the first- 
named places, and we had 
only opportunity to see a part 
of the astonishing beauty of 
the country. What sends 
picturesque tourists to the 
Rhine and Saxon Switzer- 
land .? within five miles round 
the pretty inn of Glengariff 
there is a country of the 
magnificence of which no 
pen can give an idea. I 
would like to be a great 
prince, and bring a train of painters over to make, if they could, and 
according to their several capabilities, a set of pictures of the place. 
]\Ir. Creswick would find such rivulets and waterfalls, surrounded by a 
luxuriance of foliage and verdure that only his pencil can imitate. As 
for Mr. Cattermole, a red-shanked Irishman should carry his sketching- 
books to all sorts of wild noble heights, and vast, rocky valleys, where 
he might please himself by piling crag upon crag, and by introducing, 
if he had a mind, some of the wild figures which peopled this country 
in old days. There is the Eagles' Nest, for instance, regarding which 
the Guide-book gives a pretty legend. The Prince of Bantry being 
conquered by the Enghsh soldiers, fled away, leaving his Princess 
and children to the care of a certain faithful follower of his, who was 
to provide them with refuge and food. But the whole country was 

H 




o8 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



overrun by the conquerors ; all the flocks driven away by them, all the 
houses ransacked, and the crops burnt off the ground, and the faithful 
servitor did not know where he should find a meal or a resting-place 
for the unhappy Princess O'Donovan. 

He made, however, a sort of shed by the side of a mountain, 
composing it of sods and stones so artfully that no one could tell but 
that it was a part of the hill itself; and here, having speared or other- 
wise obtained a salmon, he fed their Highnesses for the first day: 
trusting to heaven for a meal when the salmon should be ended. 

The Princess O'Donovan and her princely family soon came to an 
end of the fish ; and cried out for something more. 




So the faithful servitor, taking with him a rope and his little son 
Shamus, mounted up to the peak where the eagles rested; and, from 
the spot to which he climbed, saw their nest, and the 3^oung eaglets in 
it, in a cleft below the precipice. 

" Now," said he, " Shamus my son, you must take these thongs 
with you, and I will let you down by the rope " (it was a straw-rope, 
which he had made himself, and though it might be considered a 
dangerous thread to hang by in other countries, you'll see plenty of 
such contrivances in Ireland to the present day). 

" I will let you down by the rope, and you must tie the thongs 
round the necks of the eaglets, not so as to choke them, but to 



GLENGARIFF. 99 

prevent them from swallowing much.' So Shamus went down and 
did as his father bade him, and came up again when the eaglets were 
doctored. 

Presently the eagles came home : one bringing a rabbit and the 
other a grouse. These they "dropped into the nest for the young ones; 
and soon after went away in quest of other adventures. 

Then Shamus went down into the eagles' nest again, gutted the 
grouse and rabbit, and left the garbage to the eaglets (as was their 
right), and brought away the rest. And so the Princess and Princes 
had game that night for their supper. How long they lived in this 
way, the Guide-book does not say : but let us trust that the Prince, if 
he did not come to his own again, was at least restored to his family 
and decently mediatized : and, for my part, I have very httle doubt 
but that Shamus, the gallant young eagle-robber, created a favourable 
impression upon one of the young Princesses, and (after many 
adventures in which he distinguished himself,) was accepted by her 
Highness for a husband, and her princely parents for a gallant son-in- 
law. 

And here, while we are travelling to Glengariff, and ordering 
painters about with such princely liberality (by the way, Mr. Stanfield 
should have a boat in the bay, and paint both rock and sea at his 
ease), let me mention a wonderful, awful incident of real life which 
occurred on the road. About four miles from Bantry, at a beautiful 
wooded place, hard by a mill and waterfall, up rides a gentleman to 
the car with his luggage, going to Killarney races. The luggage 
consisted of a small carpet-bag and a pistol-case. About two miles 
farther on, a fellow stops the car : " Joe," says he, " my master is 
going to ride to Killarney, so you please to take his luggage." The 
luggage consisted of a small carpet-bag, and— a pistol-case as before. 
Is this a gentleman's usual travelling baggage in Ireland.? 

As there is more rain in this country than in any other, and as, 
therefore, naturally the inhabitants should be inured to the weather, 
and made to despise an inconvenience which they cannot avoid, the 
travelling-conveyances are arranged so that you may get as much 
practice in being wet as possible. The traveller's baggage is stowed 
in a place between the two rows of seats, and which is not inaptly 
called the well, as in a rainy season you might possibly get a bucketful 
of water out of that orifice. And I confess I saw, with a horrid satis- 
faction, the pair of pistol-cases lying in this moist aperture, with water 
pouring above them and lying below them ; nay, prayed that all such 
weapons might one day be consigned to the same fate. But as the 

H 2 

Lore 



100 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

waiter at Bantry, in his excessive zeal to serve me, had sent my 
portmanteau back to Cork by the coach, instead of allowing me to 
carry it with me to Killarney, and as the rain had long since begun to 
insinuate itself under the seat-cushion, and through the waterproof 
apron of the car, I dropped off at Glengariff, and dried the only suit of 
clothes I had by the kitchen-fire. The inn is very pretty : some thorn- 
trees stand before it, where many bare-legged people were lolling, in 
spite of the weather. A beautiful bay stretches out before the house, 
the full tide washing the thorn-trees ; mountains rise on either side of 
the little bay, and there is an island, with a castle on it, in the midst, 
near which a yacht was moored. But the mountains were hardly 
visible for the mist, and the yacht, island, and castle looked as if they 
had been washed against the flat grey sky in Indian-ink. 

The day did not clear up sufficiently to allow me to make any long 
excursion about the place, or indeed to see a very wide prospect round 
about it : at a few hundred yards, most of the objects were enveloped 
in mist ; but even this, for a lover of the picturesque, had its beautiful 
effect, for you saw the hills in the foreground pretty clear, and covered 
v/ith their wonderful green, while immediately behind them rose an 
immense blue mass of mist and mountain that served to relieve (to use 
the painter's phrase) the nearer objects. Annexed to the hotel is a 
flourishing garden, where the vegetation is so great that the landlord 
told me it was all he could do to check the trees from growing : round 
about the bay, in several places, they come clustering down to the 
water's edge, nor does the salt-water interfere with them. 

Winding up a hill to the right, as you quit the inn, is the beautiful 
road to the cottage and park of Lord Bantry. One or two parties on 
pleasure bent went so far as the house, and were partially consoled 
for the dreadful rain which presently poured down upon them, by 
wine, whisky, and refreshments which the liberal owner of the house 
sent out to them. I myself had only got a few hundred yards when 
the rain overtook me, and sent me for refuge into a shed, where a 
blacksmith had arranged a rude furnace and bellows, and where he 
was at work, with a rough gilly to help him, and of course a lounger 
or two to look on. 

The scene was exceedingly wild and picturesque, and I took out a 
sketch-book and began to draw. The blacksmith was at first very 
suspicious of the operation which I had commenced, nor did the poor 
fellow's sternness at all yield until I made him a present of a shilling 
to buy tobacco — when he, his friend, and his son became good- 
humioured, and said their Httle say. This was the first shilling he had 



THREE ENGLISH TOURISTS. loi 

earned these three years : he was a small farmer, but was starved out, 
and had set up a forge here, and was trying to get a few pence. What 
struck me was the great number of people about the place. We had 
at least twenty visits while the sketch was being made ; cars, and 
single and double horsemen, were continually passing ; between the 
intervals of the shower a couple of ragged old women would creep out 
from some hole and display baskets of green apples for sale : wet or 
not, men and women were lounging up and down the road. You would 
have thought it was a fair, and yet there was not even a village at this 
place, only the inn and post-house, by which the cars to Tralee pass 
thrice a week. 

The weather, instead of mending, on the second day was worse 
than ever. All the view had disappeared now under a rushing rain, 
of which I never saw anything like the violence. We were visited by 
five maritime — nay, buccaneering-looking gentlemen in moustaches, 
with fierce caps and jackets, just landed from a yacht : and then the 
car brought us three Englishmen wet to the skin and thirsting for 
whisky-and- water. 

And with these three Enghshmen a great scene occurred, such as 
we read of in Smollett's and Fielding's inns. One was a fat old 
gentleman from Cambridge— who, I was informed, was a Fellow of a 
college in that university, but whom I shrewdly suspect* to be butler 
or steward of the same. The younger men, burly, manly, good- 
humoured fellows of seventeen stone, were the nephews of the elder — 
who, says one, " could draw a cheque for his thousand pounds." 

Two-and-twenty years before, on landing at the Pigeon-House at 
Dublin, the old gentleman had been cheated by a carman, and his 
firm opinion seemed to be that all carmen — nay, all Irishmen — were 
cheats. 

And a sad proof of this depravity speedily showed itself : for 
having hired a three-horse car at Killarney, which was to carry them 
to Bantry, the Englishmen saw, with immense indignation, after they 
had drunk a series of glasses of whisky, that the three-horse car had 
been removed, a one-horse vehicle standing in its stead. 

Their wrath no pen can describe. '^ I tell you they are all so ! " 
shouted the elder. " When I landed at the Pigeon-house . . . ." 
" Bring me a postchaise ! " roars the second. " Waiter, get some more 
whisky ! " exclaims the third, " If they don't send us on with three 

^ The suspicion turned out to be correct. The gentleman is the respected 
cook of C , as I learned afterwards from a casual Cambridge man. 



I02 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

horses, I'll stop here for a week." Then issuing, with his two young 
friends, into the passage, to harangue the populace assembled there, 
the elder Englishman began a speech about dishonesty, " d— d rogues 
and thieves, Pigeon-House : he was a gentleman, and wouldn't be 
done, d— n his eyes and everybody's eyes." Upon the affrighted 
landlord, who came to interpose, they all fell with great ferocity : the 
elder man swearing, especially, that he "would write to Lord 
Lansdowne regarding his conduct, likewise to Lord Bandon, also to 
Lord Bantry : he was a gentleman ; he'd been cheated in the year 
1815, on his first landing at the Pigeon-House : and, d— n the Irish, 
they were all alike." After roaring and cursing for half-an-hour, a 
gentleman at the door, seeing the meek bearing of the landlord— who 
stood quite lost and powerless in the whirlwind of rage that had been 
excited about his luckless ears— said, " If men cursed and swore in 
that way in his house, he would know how to put them out." 

" Put me out ! " says one of the young men, placing himself before 
the fat old blasphem^er his relative. " Put me out, my fine fellow ! " 
But it was evident the Irishman did not like his customer. " Put me 
out ! " roars the old gentleman, from behind his young protector. 

" my eyes, who are you, sir ? who are you, sir ? I insist on 

knowing who you are." 

"And who are you .'*" asks the Irishman. 

"Sir, I'm a gentleman, and pay my way / and as soon as I get 
into Bantry, I swear I'll write a letter to Lord Bandon Bantry, and 
complain of the treatment I have received here." 

Now, as the unhappy landlord had not said one single word, and 
as, on the contrary, to the annoyance of the whole house, the stout 
old gentleman from Cambridge had been shouting, raging, and cursing 
for two hours, I could not help, like a great ass as I was, coming 
forward and (thinking the landlord might be a tenant of Lord Bantry's) 
saying, "Well, sir, if you write and say the landlord has behaved ill, 
I will write to say that he has acted with extraordinary forbearance 
and civility." 

O fool ! to interfere in disputes wh^re one set of the disputants 
have drunk half-a-dozen glasses of whisky in the middle of the day ! 
No sooner had I said this than the other young man came and fell 
upon me, and in the course of a few minutes found leisure to tell me 
" that I was no gentleman ; that I was ashamed to give my name, or 
say where I lived ; that I v/as a liar, and didn't live in London, and 
couldn't mention the name of a single respectable person there ; that 
he v»'as a merchant and tradesman, and hid his quality from, no one ; " 



THREE ENGLISH TOURISTS. 103 

and, finally, " that though bigger than himself, there was nothing he 
would like better than that I should come out on the green and stand 
to him like a man." 

This invitation, although repeated several times, I refused with as 
much dignity as I could assume ; partly because I was sober and cool, 
while the other was furious and drunk ; also because I felt a strong 
suspicion that in about ten minutes the man would manage to give me 
a tremendous beating, which I did not merit in the least; thirdly, 
because a victory over him would not have been productive of the least 
pleasure to me ; and lastly, because there was something really honest 
and gallant in the fellow coming out to defend his old relative. Both 
of the younger men would have fought like tigers for this disreputable 
old gentleman, and desired no better sport. The last I heard of the 
three was that they and the driver made their appearance before a 
magistrate in Bantry ; and a pretty story will the old man have to tell 
to his club at the "Hoop," or the "Red Lion," of those swindling Irish, 
and the ill-treatment he met with in their country. 

As for the landlord, the incident will be a blessed theme of con- 
versation to him for a long time to come. I heard him discoursing of 
it in the passage during the rest of the day ; and next morning when I 
opened my window and saw with much delight the bay clear and bright 
as silver— except where the green hills were reflected in it, the blue sky 
above, and the purple mountains round about with only a few clouds 
veiling their peaks— the first thing I heard was the voice of Mr. Eccles 
repeating the story to a new customer. 

" I thought thim couldn't be gintlemin," was the appropriate 
remark of Mr. Tom the waiter, " from the way in which they took 
their whishky — raw with cold wather, widout niixmg or inything.^^ 
Could an Irish waiter give a more excellent definition of the un- 
genteel "i 

At nine o'clock in the morning of the next day, the unlucky car 
which had carried the Englishmen to Bantry came back to Glengariff, 
and as the morning was very fine, I was glad to take advantage of it, 
and travel some five-and-thirty English miles to Killarney. 



I04 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



CHAPTER X. 



FROM GLENGARIFF TO KILLARNEY. 



HE Irish car seems accom- 
modated for any number of 
persons : it appeared to be 
full when we left Glengariff, 
for a traveller from Bear- 
haven, and the five gentle- 
men from the yacht, took 
seats upon it with myself, 
and we fancied it was im- 
possible more than sev^en 
should travel by such a con- 
veyance ; but the driver 
showed the capabilities of 
his vehicle presently. The 
journey from Glengariff to 
Kenmare is one of astonish- 
ing beauty ; and I have seen 
Killarney since, and am sure 
that Glengariff loses nothing by comparison with this most famous of 
lakes. Rock, wood, and sea stretch around the traveller— a thousand 
dehghtful pictures : the landscape is at first wild without being fierce, 
immense woods and plantations enriching the valleys— beautiful 
streams to be seen everywhere. 

Here again I was surprised at the great population along the road ; 
for one saw but few cabins, and there is no village between Glengariff 
and Kenmare. But men and women were on banks and in fields ; 
children, as usual, came trooping up to the car ; and the jovial men of 
the yacht had long conversations with most of the persons whom we 
met on the road. A merrier set of fellows it were hard to meet. 
" Should you hke anything to drink, sir? " says one, commencing the 
acquaintance. " We have the best whisky in the world, and plenty of 
porter in the basket." Therewith the jolly seamen produced a great 




CAR TRAVELLING. 105 

bottle of grog, which was passed round from one to another ; and then 
began singing, shouting, laughing, roaring for the whole journey.' 
" British sailors have a knack, pull away — ho, boys ! " " Hurroo, my 
fine fellow! does your mother know you're out?" "Hurroo, Tim 
Herlihy ! you're a Jlicke, Tim Herhhy." One man sang on the roof, 
one Imrrodd to the echo, another apostrophized the aforesaid Herlihy 
as he passed grinning on a car ; a third had a pocket-handkerchief 
flaunting from a pole, with which he performed exercises in the face of 
any horseman whom we met ; and great were their yells as the ponies 
shied off at the salutation and the riders swerved in their saddles. In 
the midst of this rattling chorus we went along : gradually the country 
grew wilder and more desolate, and we passed through a grim 
mountain region, bleak and bare, the road winding round some of the 
innumerable hills, and once or twice by means of a tunnel rushing 
boldly through them. One of these tunnels, they say, is a couple of 
hundred yards long ; and a pretty howHng, I need not say, was made 
through that pipe of rock by the jolly yacht's crew. " We saw you 
sketching in the blacksmith's shed at Glengariff," says one, "and we 
wished we had you on board. Such a jolly hfe we led of it ! " — They 
roved about the coast, they said, in their vessel ; they feasted off the 
best of fish, mutton, and whisky ; they had Gamble's turtle-soup on 
board, and fun from morning till night, and vice versa. Gradually it 
came out that there was not, owing to the tremendous rains, » dry 
corner in their ship : that the\^ slung two in a huge hammock in the 
cabin, and that one of their crew had been ill, and shirked off. What 
a wonderful thing pleasure is ! To be wet all day and night; to be 
scorched and blistered by the sun and rain ; to beat in and out of 
little harbours, and to exceed diurnally upon whisky-punch — 'faith, 
London, and an arm-chair at the club, are more to the tastes of some 
men. 

After much mountain-work of ascending and descending, (in which 
latter operation, and by the side of precipices that make passing 
cockneys rather squeamish, the carman drove like mad to the whooping 
and screeching of the red-rovers,) we at length came to Kenmare, of 
which all that I know is that it lies prettily in a bay or arm of the sea ; 
that it is approached by a little hanging-bridge, which seems to be a 
wonder in these parts ; that it is a miserable little place when you enter 
it ; and that, finally, a splendid luncheon of all sorts of meat and ex- 
cellent cold salmon may sometimes be had for a shilling at the hotel of 
the place. It is a great vacant house, like the rest of them, and would 
frighten people in England; but after a few days one grows used to 



io6 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

the Castle Rackrent style. I am not sure that there is not a certain 
sort of comfort to be had in these rambling rooms, and among these 
bustling, blundering waiters, which one does not always meet with in 
an orderly English house of entertainment. 

After discussing the luncheon, we found the car with fresh horses, 
beggars, idlers, policemen, &c., standing round of course; and now the 
miraculous vehicle, which had held hitherto seven with some difficulty, 
was called upon to accommodate thirteen. 

A pretty noise would our three Englishmen of yesterday — nay, any 
other Englishmen for the matter of that— have made, if coolly called 
upon to admit an extra party of four into a mail-coach ! The yacht's 
crew did not make a single objection ; a couple clambered up on the 
roof, where they managed to locate themselves with wonderful in- 
genuity, perched upon hard wooden chests, or agreeably reposing 
upon the knotted ropes which held them together : one of the new 
passengers scrambled between the driver's legs, where he held on 
somehow, and the rest were pushed and squeezed astonishingly in the 
car. 

Now the fact must be told, that live of the new passengers (I don't 
count a little boy besides) were women, and very pretty, gay, frolick- 
some, lively, kind-hearted, innocent women too ; and for the rest of the 
journey there was no end of laughing and shouting, and singing, and 
hugging, so that the caravan presented the appearance which is depicted 
in the opposite engraving. 

Now it may be a wonder to some persons, that with such a cargo 
the carriage did not upset, or some of us did not fall off; to which the 
answer is that we did fall off. A very pretty woman fell off, and showed 
a pair of never-mind-what-coloured garters, and an interesting English 
traveller fell off too : but heaven bless you ! these cars are made to fall 
off from; and considering the circumstances of the case, and in the 
same company', I would rather fall off than not. A great number of 
poHte allusions and genteel inquiries were, as may be imagined, made 
by the jolly boat's crew. But though the lady affected to be a little 
angry at first, she was far too good-natured to be angry long, and at 
last fairly burst out laughing with the passengers. We did not fall off 
again, but held on very tight, and just as we were reaching Killarney, 
saw somebody else fall off from another car. But in this instance the 
gentleman had no lady to tumble with. 

For almost half the way from Kenmare, this wild, beautiful road 
commands views of the famous lake and vast blue mountains about 
Killarney. Turk, Tomies, and Mangerton were clothed in purple like 



io8 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

kings in mourning ; great heavy clouds were gathered round their heads, 
parting away every now and then, and leaving their noble features bare. 
The lake lay for some time underneath us, dark and blue, with dark 
misty islands in the midst. On the right-hand side of the road would 
be a precipice covered with a thousand trees, or a green rocky flat, 
with a reedy mere in the midst, and other mountains rising as far as 
we could see. I think of that diabolical tune in " Der Freischiitz " 
while passing through this sort of country. Every now and then, in 
the midst of some fresh country or inclosed trees, or at a turn of the 
road, you lose the sight of the great big awful mountain : but, like the 
aforesaid tune in " Der Freischiitz," it is always there close at hand. 
You feel that it keeps you company. And so it was that we rode by 
dark old Mangerton, then presently past Muckross, and then through 
two miles of avenues of lime-trees, by numerous lodges and gentlemen's 
seats, across an old bridge, where you see the mountains again and 
the lake, until, by Lord Kenmare's house, a hideous row of houses 
informed us that we were at Killarney. 

Here my companion suddenly let go my hand, and by a certain 
uneasy motion of the waist, gave me notice to withdraw the other too; 
and so we rattled up to the '•' Kenmare Arms : " and so ended, not 
without a sigh on my part, one of the merriest six-hour rides that five 
yachtsmen, one cockney, five women and a child, the carman, and a 
countryman with an alpeen, ever took in their lives. 

As for my fellow-companion, she would hardly speak the next day ; 
but all the five maritime men made me vow and promise that I would 
go and see them at Cork, where I should have horses to ride, the 
fastest yacht out of the harbour to sail in, and the best of whisky, 
claret, and welcome. Amen, and may every single person who buys 
a copy of this book meet with the same deserved fate ! 

The town of Killarney was in a violent state of excitement with a 
series of horse-races, hurdle-races, boat-races, and stag-hunts by land 
and water, which were taking place, and attracted a vast crowd from 
all parts of the kingdom. All the inns were full, and lodgings cost five 
shillings a day— nay, more in some places ; for though my landlady, 
Mrs. Macgillicuddy, charges but that sum, a leisurely old gentleman 
whom I never saw in my life before made my acquaintance by stopping 
me in the street yesterday, and said he paid a pound a day for his two 
bed-rooms. The old gentleman is eager for company ; and indeed, 
when a man travels alone, it is wonderful how little he cares to select 
his society ; how indifferent company pleases him ; how a good fellow 
delights him : how sorry he is when the time for parting comes, 



AN EDINBURGH COCKNEY. 109 

and he has to walk off alone, and begin the friendship-hunt over 
again. 

The first sight I witnessed at Killarney was a race-ordinary, where, 
for a sum of twelve shillings, any man could take his share of turbot, 
salmon, venison, and beef, with port, and sherry, and whisky-punch 
at discretion. Here were the squires of Cork and Kerry, one or two 
Englishmen, whose voices amidst the rich humming brogue round 
about sounded quite affected (not that they were so, but there seems 
a sort of impertinence in the shrill, high-pitched tone of the English 
voice here). At the head of the table, near the chairman, sat some 
brilliant young dragoons, neat, solemn, dull, with huge moustaches, 
and boots polished to a nicety. 

And here of course the conversation was of the horse, horsey : 
how Mr. This had refused fifteen hundred guineas for a horse which 
he bought for a hundred ; how Bacchus was the best horse in Ireland ; 
which horses were to run at Something races ; and how the Marquis 
of Waterford gave a plate or a purse. We drank " the Queen," with 
hip ! hip ! hurrah ! the " winner of the Kenmare stakes "—hurrah ! 
Presently the gentleman next me rose and made a speech : he had 
brought a mare down and v/on the stakes— a hundred and seventy 
guineas— and I looked at him with a great deal of respect Other 
toasts ensued, and more talk about horses. Nor am I in the least 
disposed to sneer at gentlemen who like sporting and talk about it : 
for I do believe that the conversation of a dozen fox-hunters is just as 
clever as that of a similar number of merchants, barristers, or literary 
men. But to this trade, as to all others, a man must be bred ; if he 
has not learnt it thoroughly or in early life, he will not readily become 
a proficient afterwards, and when therefore the subject is broached, 
had best maintain a profound silence. 

A young Edinburgh cockney, with an easy self-confidence that the 
reader may have perhaps remarked in others of his calling and nation, 
and who evidently knew as much of sporting matters as the individual 
who writes this, proceeded nevertheless to give the company his 
opinions, and greatly astonished them all ; for these simple people are 
at first willing to believe that a stranger is sure to be a knowing fellow, 
and did not seem inclined to be . undeceived even by this little pert, 
grinning Scotchman. It was good to hear him talk of Haddington, 
Musselburgh — and heaven knows what strange outlandish places, as if 
they were known to all the world.. And here would be a good oppor- 
tunity to enter into a dissertation upon national characteristics : to show 
that the bold, swaggering Irishman is really a modest fellow, while the 



no THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

canny Scot is a most brazen one ; to wonder why the inhabitant of one 
country is ashamed of it — which is in itself so fertile and beautiful, and 
has produced more than its fair proportion of men of genius, valour, 
and wit ; whereas it never enters into the head of a Scotchman to 
question his own equality (and something more) at all : but that such 
discussions are quite unprofitable ; nay, that exactly the contrary 
propositions may be argued to just as much length. Has the reader 
ever tried with a dozen of De Tocqueville's short crisp philosophic 
apophthegms and taken the converse of them ? The one or other set 
of propositions will answer equally well; and it is the best way to avoid 
all such. Let the above passage, then, simply be understood to sa}-, 
that on a certain day the writer met a vulgar little Scotchman— not 
that all Scotchmen are vulgar ; — that this little pert creature prattled 
about his country as if he and it were ornaments to the world — which 
the latter is, no doubt ; and that one could not but contrast his be- 
haviour with that of great big stalwart simple Irishmen, who asked 
your opinion of their country with as much modesty as if you — 
because an Englishman — must be somebody, and they the dust of the 
earth. 

Indeed, this want of self-confidence at times becomes quite painful 
to the stranger. If, in reply to their queries, you say you like the 
country, people seem really quite delighted. Why should they ? Why 
should a stranger's opinion who doesn't know the country be more 
valued than a native's who does ? — Suppose an Irishman in England 
were to speak in praise or abuse of the country, would one be particu- 
larly pleased or annoyed ? One would be glad that the man liked his 
trip ; but as for his good or bad opinion of the country, the country 
stands on its own bottom, superior to any opinion of any man or men. 
I must beg pardon of the little Scotchman for reverting to him 
(let it be remembered that there were two Scotchmen at Killarney, and 
that I speak of the other one) : but I have seen no specimen of that 
sort of manners in any Irishman since I have been in the country. I 
have met more gentlemen here than in any place I ever saw : gentle- 
men of high and low ranks, that is to say : men shrewd and delicate 
of perception, observant of society, entering into the feelings of others, 
and anxious to set them at ease or to gratify them ; of course, exag- 
gerating their professions of kindness^ and in so far insincere ; but 
the very exaggeration seems to be a proof of a kindly nature, and I 
wish in England we were a little more complimentary. In Dublin, a 
lawyer left his chambers, and a literary man his books, to walk the 
town with me — the town, which they must know a great deal too well : 



IRISH AND ENGLISH. m 

for, pretty as it is, it is but a small place after all, not like that great 
bustling, changing, struggling world, the Englishman's capital. Would 
a London man leave his business to trudge to the Tower or the Park 
with a stranger ? We would ask him to dine at the club, or to eat 
whitebait at Lovegrove's, and think our duty done, neither caring for 
him, nor professing to care for him ; and we pride ourselves on our 
honesty accordingly. Never was honesty more selfish. And so a vulgar 
man in England disdains to flatter his equals, and chiefly displays his 
character of snob by assuming as much as he can for himself, swagger- 
ing and showing off in his coarse, dull, stupid way. 

"I am a gentleman, and pay my way," as the old fellow said at 
Glengariff I have not heard a sentence near so vulgar from any 
man in Ireland. Yes, by the way, there was another Englishman at 
Cork : a man in a middling, not to say humble, situation of life. 
When introduced to an Irish gentleman, his formula seemed to be, 
" I think, sir, I have met you somewhere before." " I am sure, sir, 
I have met you before," he said, for the second time in my hearing, to 
a gentleman of great note in Ireland. " Yes, I have met you at Lord 

X 's." " I don't know my Lord X ," replied the Irishman. 

" Sir," says the other, ^'- 1 shall have great pleasure in introducing you 
to himP Well, the good-natured simple Irishman thought this gentle- 
man a very fine fellow. There was only one, of some dozen who 
spoke about him, that found out Snob. I suppose the Spaniards 
lorded it over the Mexicans in this way : their drummers passing for 
generals among the simple red men, their glass beads for jewels, and 
their insolent bearing for heroic superiority. 

Leaving, then, the race-ordinary (that little Scotchman with his airs 
has carried us the deuce knows how far out of the way), I came home 
just as the gentlemen of the race were beginning to " mix," that is, to 
forsake the wine for the punch. At the lodgings I found my five 
companions of the morning with a bottle of that wonderful whisky 
of which they spoke ; and which they had agreed to exchange against 
a bundle of Liverpool cigars : so we discussed them, the whisky, and 
and other topics in common. Now there is no need to violate the 
sanctity of private life, and report the conversation which took place, 
the songs which, were sung, the speeches which were made, and the 
other remarkable events of the evening. Suffice it to say, that 
the English traveller gradually becomes accustomed to whisky-punch 
(in moderation of course), and finds the beverage very agreeable at 
Killarney ; against which I recollect a protest was entered at Dublin. 

But after we had talked of hunting, racing, regatting, and all 



112 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

other sports, I came to a discovery which astonished me, and for 
which these honest, kind fellows are mentioned publicly here. The 
portraits, or a sort of resemblance of four of them, may be seen in the 
foregoing drawing of the car. The man with the straw-hat and hand- 
kerchief tied over it is the captain of an Indiaman ; three others, with 
each a pair of moustaches, sported yacht- costumes, jackets, club 
anchor-buttons, and so forth ; and, finally, one on the other side of the 
car (who cannot be seen on account of the portmanteaus, otherwise the 
hkeness would be perfect,) was dressed with a coat and a hat in the 
ordinary way. One with the gold band and moustaches is a gentle- 
man of property ; the other three are attorneys every man of them : 
two in large practice in Cork and Dubhn, the other, and owner of the 
yacht, under articles to the attorney of Cork. Now did any English- 
man ever live with three attorneys for a whole day without hearing 
a single syllable of law spoken ? Did we ever see in our country 
attorneys with moustaches ; or, above all, an attorney's clerk the 
owner of a yacht of thirty tons ? He is a gentleman of property too — 
the heir, that is, to a good estate \ and has had a yacht of his own, he 
says, ever since he was fourteen years old. Is there any English boy 
of fourteen who commands a ship with a crew of five men under him.? 
We all agreed to have a boat for the stag-hunt on the lake next day ; 
and I went to bed wondering at this strange country more than ever. 
An attorney with moustaches ! What would they say of him in 
Chancery Lane ? 



THE INN BY THE LAKE, 



CHAPTER XI 



KILLARNEY— STAG-HUNTING ON THE LAKE. 




RS. MACGILLICUDDY'S 
house is at the corner of the 
two principal streets of Kil- 
larney town, and the draw- 
ing-room windows command 
each a street. Before one 
window is a dismal, rickety- 
building, with a slated face, 
that looks like an ex-town-hall. 
There is a row of arches to the 
ground-floor, the angles at the 
base of which seem to have 
mouldered or to have been 
kicked away. Over the centre 
arch is a picture with a flou- 
rishing yellow inscription 
above, importing that it is 
the meeting-place of the Total 
Total abstinence is represented by the figures of 
a gentleman in a blue coat and drab tights, with gilt garters, who is 
giving his hand to a lady ; between them is an escutcheon, surmounted 
with a cross and charged with religious emblems. Cupids float above 
the heads and between the legs of this happy pair, while an exceed- 
ingly small tea-table with the requisite crockery reposes against the 
lady's knee ; a still, with death's-head and bloody-bones, filling up the 
naked corner near the gentleman. A sort of market is held here, and 
the place is swarming with blue cloaks and groups of men talking ; 
here and there is a stall with coarse linens, crockery, a cheese ; and 
crowds of Qgg- and milk-women are squatted on the pavement, with 
their ragged customers or gossips ; and the yellow-haired girl, on the 
next page, has been sitting, as if for her portrait, this hour past. 

I 




Abstinence Society. 



114 



THE msH -^^'^^^^ '"^^"' 

"4 . horses and vehicles of all descnp- 

to see the stag nun 




,eot heaven Unow.for their l>°-;f f^t gtS, 
cuddyfamily^aveslept,hea^^.^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 

What voices you heai . ^_ j^g.e's me hot gather • 

toned H-.bern.an_See o^^ ^^ ^^^^^,,^,^,3ett,ngout. Iw 
tabinettakmg their tay v 



THE STAG-HUNT. 



115 



they heard the sentimental songs of the law-marines last night ? They 
must have been edified if they did. 

My companions came, true to their appointment, and we walked 
down to the boats, lying at a couple of miles from the town, near the 
" Victoria Inn," a handsome mansion, in pretty grounds, close to the 
lake, and owned by the patriotic Mr. Finn. A nobleman offered Finn 
eight hundred pounds for the use of his house during the races, and, 
to Finn's eternal honour be it said, he refused the money, and said he 
would keep his house for his friends and patrons, the public. Let the 
Cork Steam-Packet Company think of this generosity on the part of 
Mr. Finn, and blush for shame : at the Cork Agricultural Show they 
raised their fares, and were disappointed in their speculation, as they 
deserved to be, by indignant Englishmen refusing to go at all. 

The morning had been bright enough ; but for fear of accidents 
we took our mackintoshes, and at about a mile from the town found 
it necessary to assume those garments and wear them for the greater 
part of the day. Passing by the " Victoria," with its beautiful walks, 
park, and lodge, we came to a little creek where the boats were 
moored ; and there was the wonderful lake before us, with its moun- 
tains, and islands, and trees. Unluckily, however, the mountains 
happened to be invisible ; the islands looked Hke grey masses in the 
fog, and all that we could see for some time was the grey silhouette of 
the boat ahead of us, in which a passenger was engaged in a witty 
conversation with some boat still further in the mist. 



Drumming and trumpeting was heard at a Httle distance, and 
presently we found ourselves in the midst of a fleet of boats upon the 
rocky shores of the beautiful little Innisfallen. 

Here we landed for a while, and the weather clearing up allowed 
us to see this charming spot : rocks, shrubs, and little abrupt rises 
and falls of ground, covered with the brightest emerald grass ; a 



Il6 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

beautiful little ruin of a Saxon chapel, lying gentle, delicate, and 
plaintive on the shore ; some noble trees round about it, and beyond, 
presently, the tower of Ross Castle : island after island appearing in 
the clearing sunshine, and the huge hills throwing their misty veils 
off, and wearing their noble robes of purple. The boats crews were 
grouped about the place, and one large barge especially had landed 
some sixty people, being the Temperance band, with its drums, 
trumpets, and wives. They were marshalled by a grave old gentle- 
man with a white waistcoat and queue, a silver medal decorating 
one side of his coat, and a brass heart reposing on the other flap. 
The horns performed some Irish airs prettily ; and at length, at the 
instigation of a fellow who went swaggering about with a pair of 
whirhng drumsticks, all formed together and played " Garryowen "—the 
active drum of course most dreadfully out of time. 

Having strolled about the island for a quarter of an hour, it 
became time to take to the boats again, and we were rowed over to 
the wood opposite Sullivan's cascade, where the hounds had been 
laid in in the morning, and the stag was expected to take water. Fifty 
or sixty men are employed on the mountain to drive the stag lakewards, 
should he be inclined to break away : and the sport generally ends by 
the stag — a wild one — making for the water with the pack swimming 
afterwards ; and here he is taken and disposed of: how I know not. 
It is rather a parade than a stag-hunt ; but, with all the boats around 
and the noble view, must be a fine thing to see. 

Presently, steering his barge, the " Erin," with twelve oars and a 
green flag sweeping the water, came by the president of the sports, 
Mr. John O'Connell, a gentleman who appears to be liked by rich 
and poor here, and by the latter especially is adored. " Sure we'd 
dhrown ourselves for him," one man told me ; and proceeded to speak 
eagerly in his praise, and to tell numberless acts of his generosity 
and justice. The justice is rather rude in this wild country sometimes, 
and occasionally the judges not only deliver the sentence but execute 
it ; nor does any one think of appealing to any more regular juris- 
diction. The likeness of Mr. O'Connell to his brother is very striking : 
one might have declared it was the Liberator sitting at the stern of the 
boat. 

Some scores more boats were there, darting up and down in the 
pretty, busy waters. Here came a Cambridge boat ; and where, 
indeed, will not the gentlemen of that renowned university be found ? 
Yonder were the dandy dragoons, stiff, silent, slim, faultlessly appointed, 
solemnly puffing cigars. Every now and then a hound would be 



THE STAG-HUNT. 



117 



heard in the wood, whereon numbers of voices, right and left, would 
begin to yell in chorus— " Hurroo ! Hoop! Yow— yow— yow ! " in 
accents the most shrill or the most melanchoKous. ' Meanwhile the 
sun had had enough of the sport, the mountains put on their veils 
again, the islands retreated into the mist, the word went through the 
fleet to spread all umbrellas, and ladies took shares of mackintoshes 
and disappeared under the flaps of silk cloaks. 

The wood comes down to the very edge of the water, and many 
of the crews thought fit to land and seek this green shelter. There 
you might see how the dandhim sitmmd genus hcBsit ulmo, clambering 
up thither to hide from the rain, and many '• membra " in dabbled 
russia-ducks cowering viridl sub arbiito ad aquce lene caput. To 



WM'^-^ 




behold these moist dandies the natives of the country came eagerly. 
Strange, savage faces might be seen peering from out of the trees : 
long-haired, barelegged girls came down the hill, some with green 
apples and very sickly-looking plums ; some with whisky and goat's- 
milk : a ragged boy had a pair of stag's horns to sell : the place 
swarmed with people. We went up the hill to see the noble cascade, 
and when you say that it comes rushing down over rock and through 
tangled woods, alas ! one has said all the dictionary can help you to, 
and not enough to distinguish this particular cataract from any other. 
This seen and admired, we came back to the harbour where the boats 
lay, and from which spot the reader might have seen the foregoing 
view of the lake— that is, you would see the lake, if the mist would 
only clear away. 



ii8 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

But this for hours it did not seem inclined to do. We rowed up 
and down industriously for a period of time which seemed to me 
atrociously long. The bugles of the " Erin " had long since sounded 
" Home, sweet home ! " and the greater part of the fleet had dispersed. 
As for the stag-hunt, all I saw of it was four dogs that appeared on 
the shore at different intervals, and a huntsman in a scarlet coat, 
who similarly came and went : once or twice we were gratified by 
hearing the hounds : but at last it was agreed that there was no chance 
for the day, and we rowed off to Kenmare Cottage — where, on the 
lovely lawn, or in a cottage adjoining, the gentry picnic, and where, 
with a handkerchiefiful of potatoes, we made as pleasant a meal as 
ever I recollect. Here a good number of the boats were assembled ; 
here you might see cloths spread and dinner going on ; here were 
those wonderful officers, looking as if they had just stepped from 
bandboxes, with — by heavens ! — not a shirt-collar disarranged nor a 
boot dimmed by the wet. An old piper was making a very feeble 
music, with a handkerchief spread over his face ; and, farther on, a 
little smiling German boy was playing an accordion and singing a 
ballad of Hauff's. I had a silver medal in my pocket, with Victoria 
on one side and Britannia on the other, and gave it him, for the sake 
of old times and his round friendly face. Oh, Kttle German boy, 
many a night as you trudge lonely through this wild land, must you 
yearn after Bruderlem and Schwesterlein at home — yonder in stately 
Frankfiirt city that lies by silver Main. I thought of vineyards and 
sunshine, and the greasy clock in the theatre, and the railroad all the 
way to Wiesbaden, and the handsome Jew country-houses by the 
Bockenheimer-Thor .... "Come along," says the boatman. "All 
the gintlemin are waiting for your honour." And I found them 
finishing the potatoes, and we all had a draught of water from the 
lake, and so pulled to the Middle or Turk Lake through the pictu- 
resque green rapid that floats under Brickeen Bridge. 

What is to be said about Turk Lake .^ When there, we agreed 
that it was more beautiful than the large lake, of which it is not one- 
fourth the size ; then, when we came back, we said, " No, the large 
lake is the most beautiful." And so, at every point we stopped at, we 
determined that that particular spot was the prettiest in the whole 
lake. The fact is— and I don't care to own it — they are too hand- 
some. As for a man coming from his desk in London or Dublin 
and seeing "the whole lakes in a day," he is an ass for his pains ; a 
child doing sums in addition might as well read the whole multiplica- 
tion-table, and fancy he had it by heart. \Ve should look at these 



THE LAKES OF KILLARNEY, 119 

wonderful things leisurely and thoughtfully ; and even then, blessed 
is he who understands them. I wonder what impression the sight 
made upon the three tipsy EngHshmen at Glengariff ? What idea of 
natural beauty belongs to an old fellow who says he is " a gentleman, 
and pays his way?" What to a jolly fox-hunter, who had rather see 
a good " screeching " run with the hounds than the best landscape 
ever painted? And yet they all come hither, and go through the 
business regularly, and would not miss seeing every one of the lakes 
and going up every one of the hills. By which circumlocution the 
writer wishes ingenuously to announce that he will not see any more 
lakes, ascend any mountains or towers, visit any gaps of Dunloe, or 
any prospects whatever, except such as nature shall fling in his way 
in the course of a cpiet reasonable walk. 

In the Middle Lake we were carried to an island where a cere- 
mony of goat's-milk and whisky is performed by some travellers, 
and where you are carefully conducted to a spot that " Sir Walter 
Scott admired more than all." Whether he did or not, we can only 
say on the authority of the boatman ; but the place itself was a quiet 
nook, where three waters meet, and indeed of no great picturesqueness 
when compared with the beauties around. But it is of a gentle, 
homely beauty — not like the lake, which is as a princess dressed out 
in diamonds and velvet for a drawing-room, and knowing herself to 
be faultless too. As for Innisfallen, it was just as if she gave one 
smiling peep into the nursery before she wxnt away, so quiet, innocent, 
and tender is that lovely spot ; but, depend on it, if there is a lake 
fairy or princess, as Crofton Croker and other historians assert, she is 
of her nature a vain creature, proud of her person, and fond of the 
finest dresses to adorn it. May I confess that I would rather, for a 
continuance, have a house facing a paddock, with a cow in it, than be 
always looking at this immense, overpowering splendour. You would 
not, my dear brother cockney from Tooley Street ? No, those brilHant 
eyes of thine were never meant to gaze at anything less bright than 
the sun. Your mighty spirit finds nothing too vast for its compre- 
hension, spurns what is humble as unworthy, and only, like Foote's 
bear, dances to " the genteelest of tunes." 

The long and short of the matter is, that on getting off the lake, 
after seven hours' rowing, I felt as much relieved as if I had been 
dining for the same length of time with her Majesty the Queen, and 
went jumping home as gaily as possible ; but those marine lawyers 
insisted so piteously upon seeing Ross Castle, close to which we were 
at length landed, that I was obliged (in spite of repeated oaths to the 



I20 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

contrary) to ascend that tower, and take a bird's-eye view of the 
scene. Thank heaven, I have neither tail nor wings, and have not 
the shghtest wish to be a bird : that continual immensity of prospect 
which stretches beneath those little wings of theirs must deaden their 
intellects, depend on it. Tomkins and I are not made for the 
immense : we can enjoy a little at a time, and enjoy that little very 
much; or if like birds, we are like the ostrich — not that we have 
fine feathers to our backs, but because we cannot fly. Press us too 
much, and we become flurried, and run off and bury our heads in the 
quiet bosom of dear mother earth, and so get rid of the din, and the 
dazzle, and the shouting. 

Because we dined upon potatoes, that was no reason we should 
sup on buttermilk. Well, well ! salmon is good, and whisky is good 
too. 



THE RACES. 



121 



CHAPTER XII. 

KILLARNEY— THE RACES— MUCKROSS. 







HE races were as gay as 
races could be, in spite of 
one or two untoward acci- 
dents that arrived at the 
close of the day's sport. 
Where all the people came 
from that thronged out of 
the town was a wonder ; 
where all the vehicles, the 
cars, barouches and shandry- 
dans, the carts, the horse- 
and donkey-men could have 
found stable and shelter, 
who can tell? Of all these 
equipages and donkeypages 
I had a fine view from Mrs. 
Macgillicuddy's window, 
and it was pleasant to see 
the happy faces shining 



under the blue cloaks as the carts rattled by. 

A very handsome young lady — I presume Miss MacG. — who 
gives a hand to the drawing-room and comes smiling in with the tea- 
pot — Miss MacG., I say, appeared to-day in a silk bonnet and stiff 
silk dress, with a brooch and a black mantle, as smart as any lady in 
the land, and looking as if she was accustomed to her dress too, which 
the housemaid on the banks of Thames does not. Indeed, I have not met 
a more ladylike young person in Ireland than Miss MacG. ; and when 
I saw her in a handsome car on the course, I was quite proud of a 
bow. 

Tramping thither, too, as hard as they could walk, and as happy 
and smiling as possible, were Mary the coachman's wife of the day 



122 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

before, and Johanna with the child, and presently the other young 
lady : the man with the stick, you may be sure : he would toil a year 
for that day's pleasure. They are all mad for it : people walk for 
miles and miles round to the race ; they come without a penny in their 
pockets often, trusting to chance and charity, and that some worthy 
gentleman may fling them a sixpence. A gentleman told me that he 
saw on the course persons from his part of the country, who must 
have walked eighty miles for the sport. 

For a mile and a half to the racecourse there could be no pleasanter 
occupation than looking at the happy multitudes who were thronging 
thither ; and I am bound to say that on rich or poor shoulders I never 
saw so many handsome faces in my life. In the carriages, among the 
ladies of Kerry, every second woman was handsome ; and there is 
something peculiarly tender and pleasing in the looks of the young 
female peasantry that is perhaps even better than beauty. Beggars 
had taken their stations along the road in no great numbers, for I 
suspect they were most of them on the ground, and those who 
remained were consequently of the oldest and ugliest. It is a shame 
that such horrible figures are allowed to appear in public as some of 
the loathsome ones which belong to these unhappy people. On went 
the crowd, however, laughing and as gay as possible ; all sorts of fun 
passing from car- to foot-passengers as the pretty girls came clattering 
by, and the " boys " had a word for each. One lady, with long flowing 
auburn hair, who was turning away her head from some " boys " very 
demurely, I actually saw, at a pause of the cart, kissed by one of 
them. She gave the fellow a huge box on the ear and he roared out 
" O murther ! " and she frowned for some time as hard as she could, 
whilst the ladies in the blue cloaks at the back of the car uttered a 
shrill rebuke in Irish. But in a minute the whole party was grinning, 
and the young fellow who had administered the salute may, for what 
I know, have taken another without the slap on the face by way of 
exchange. 

And here, lest the fair public may have a bad opinion of the 
personage who talks of kissing with such awful levity, let it be said 
that with all this laughing, romping, kissing, and the like, there are no 
more innocent girls in the world than the Irish girls ; and that the 
women of our squeamish country are far more liable to err. One has 
but to walk through an English and Irish town, and see how much 
superior is the morality of the latter. That great terror- striker, the 
Confessional, is before the Irish girl, and sooner or later her sins must 
be told there. 



THE RACES. 123 

By this time we are got upon the course, which is really one of 
the most beautiful spots that ever was seen : the lake and mountains 
lying along two sides of it, and of course visible from all. They were 
busy putting up the hurdles when we arrived : stiff bars and poles, 
four feet from the ground, with furze-bushes over them. The grand 
stand was already full ; along the hedges sat thousands of the people, 
sitting at their ease doing nothing, and happy as kings. A daguerreo- 
type would have been of great service to have taken their portraits, 
and I never saw a vast multitude of heads and attitudes so pic- 
turesque and lively. The sun lighted up the whole course and the 
lakes with amazing brightness, though behind the former lay a huge 
rack of the darkest clouds, against which the corn-fields and meadows 
shone in the brightest green and gold, and a row of white tents was 
quite dazzling. 

There was a brightness and intelligence about this immense Irish 
crowd, which I don't remember to have seen in an English one. The 
women in their blue cloaks, with red smiling faces peering from one 
end, and bare feet from the other, had seated themselves in all sorts 
of pretty attitudes of cheerful contemplation : and the men, who are 
accustomed to lie about, were doing so now with all their might — 
sprawling on the banks, with as much ease and variety as club-room 
loungers on their soft cushions, — or squatted leisurely among the green 
potatoes. The sight of so much happy laziness did one good to look 
on. Nor did the honest fellows seem to weary of this amusement. 
Hours passed on, and the gentlefolks (judging from our party) began 
to grow somewhat weary ; but the finest peasantry in Europe never 
budged from their posts, and continued to indulge in greetings, in- 
dolence, and conversation. 

When we came to the row of white tents, as usual it did not look 
so brilliant or imposing as it appeared from a little distance, though 
the scene around them was animating enough. The tents were long 
humble booths stretched on hoops, each with its humble streamer or 
ensign without, and containing, of course, articles of refreshment 
within. But Father Mathew has been busy among the publicans, 
and the consequence is that the poor fellows are now condemned for 
the most part to sell "tay " in place of whisky; for the concoction of 
which beverage huge cauldrons were smoking, in front of each hut- 
door, in round graves dug for the purpose and piled up with black 
smoking sod. 

Behind this camp were the carts of the poor people, which were 
not allowed to penetrate into the quarter where the quality cars stood. 



124 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK, 



And a little way from the huts, again, you might see (for you could 
scarcely hear) certain pipers executing their melodies and inviting 
people to dance. 

Anything more lugubrious than the drone of the pipe, or the jig 
danced to it, or the countenances of the dancers and musicians, I never 
saw. Round each set of dancers the people formed a ring, in the 
which the figurantes and coryphees went through their operations. 
The toes went in and the toes went out ; then there came certain 




; ^ 1 



1W.V. 



mystic figures of hands across, and so forth. I never saw less grace 
or seemingly less enjoyment— no, not even in a quadrille. The people, 
however, took a great interest, and it was "Well done, Tim !" " Step 
out. Miss Brady !" and so forth during the dance. 

Thimble-rig too obtained somewhat, though in a humble way. A 
ragged scoundrel — the image of Hogarth's Bad Apprentice — went 
bustling and shouting through the crowd with his dirty tray and 
thimble, and as soon as he had taken his post, stated that this was 
the " royal game of thimble " and called upon " gintlemin " to come 



GAMBLING AT THE RACES. 



125 



forward. And then a ragged fellow would be seen to approach, with 
as innocent an air as he could assume, and the bystanders might 
remark that the second ragged fellow almost always won. Nay, he 
was so benevolent, in many instances, as to point out to various 
people who had a mind to bet, under which thimble the pea actually 
was. Meanwhile, the first fellow was sure to be looking away and 
talking to some one in the crowd ; but somehow it generally happened — 
and how of course I can't tell — that any man who listened to the advice 
of rascal No. 2, lost his money. I believe it is so even in England. 

Then you would see gentlemen with halfpenny roulette-tables; and, 
again, here were a pair (indeed they are very good portraits) who 




came forward disinterestedly with a table and a pack of cards, and 
began playing against each other for ten shillings a game, betting 
crowns as freely as possible. 

GambHng, however, must have been fatal to both of these 
gentlemen, else might not one have supposed that, if they were in 
the habit cf winning much, they would have treated themselves to 
better clothes? This, however, is the way with all gamblers, as the 
reader has no doubt remarked : for, look at a game of loo or vingt- 
et-un played in a friendly way, and where you, and three or four 
others, have certainly lost three or four pounds,— well, ask at the end 
of the game who has won, and you invariably find that nobody has. 
Hopkins has only covered himself; Snooks has neither lost nor 



126 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

won ; Smith has won four shillings ; and so on. Who gets the 
money? The devil gets it, I dare say; and so, no doubt, he has 
laid hold of the money of yonder gentleman in the handsome great- 
coat. 

But, to the shame of the stewards be it spoken, they are extremely 
averse to this kind of sport ; and presently comes up one, a stout old 
gentleman on a bay horse, wielding a huge hunting-whip, at the sight 
of which all fly, amateurs, idlers, professional men, and all. He is a 
rude customer to deal with, that gentleman with the whip : just now 
he was clearing the course, and cleared it with such a vengeance, 
that a whole troop on a hedge retreated backwards into a ditch 
opposite, where was rare kicking, and sprawling, and disarrangement 
of petticoats, and cries of " O murther ! " " Mother of God ! " " I'm 
kilt ! " and so on. But as soon as the horsewhip was gone, the people 
clambered out of their ditch again, and were as thick as ever on the 
bank. 

The last instance of the exercise of the whip shall be this. A 
groom rode insolently after a gentleman, calling him names, and 
inviting him to fight. This the great flagellator hearing, rode up to 
the groom, lifted him gracefully off his horse into the air, and on to 
the ground, and when there administered to him a severe and merited 
fustigation ; after which he told the course-keepers to drive the 
fellow off the course, and enjoined the latter not to appear again at 
his peril. 

As for the races themselves, I won't pretend to say that they were 
better or worse than other such amusements ; or to quarrel with 
gentlemen who choose to risk their lives in manly exercise. In the 
first race there was a fall : one of the gentlemen was carried off the 
ground, and it was said he was dead. In the second race, a horse 
and man went over and over each other, and the fine young man (we 
had seen him five minutes before, full of life and triumph, clearing the 
hurdles on his grey horse, at the head of the race) : — in the second 
heat of the second race the poor fellow missed his leap, was carried 
away stunned and dying, and the bay horse won. 

I was standing, during the first heat of this race, (this is the 
second man the grey has killed — they ought to call him the Pale 
Horse,) by half-a-dozen young girls from the gentleman's village, and 
hundreds more of them were there, anxious for the honour of their 
village, the young squire, and the grey horse. Oh, how they hurrah'd 
as he rode ahead ! I saw these girls — they might be fourteen years 
old— after the catastrophe. " Well," says I, " this is a sad end to the 



THE END OF A RACE. 127 

race." ^^ And is it the pink jacket or the blue has won this ti7Jie?" 

says one of the girls. It was poor Mr. C 's only epitaph : and 

wasn't it a sporting answer ? That girl ought to be a hurdle-racer's 
wife ; and I would like, for my part, to bestow her upon the groom 
who won the race. 

I don't care to confess that the accident to the poor young gentle- 
man so thoroughly disgusted my feelings as a man and a cockney, 
that I turned off the racecourse short, and hired a horse for sixpence 
to carry me back to Miss Macgillicuddy. In the evening, at the 
inn, (let no man who values comfort go to an Irish inn in race-time,) 
a bhnd old piper, with silvery hair and of a most respectable, bard- 
like appearance, played a great deal too much for us after dinner. 
He played very well, and with very much feeling, ornamenting the 
airs with flourishes and variations that were very pretty indeed, and 
his pipe was by far the most melodious I have heard ; but honest truth 
compels me to say, that the bad pipes are execrable, and the good 
inferior to a clarionet. 

Next day, instead of going back to the racecourse, a car drove me 
out to Muckross, where, in Mr. Herbert's beautiful grounds, lies the 
prettiest little bijoji of a ruined abbey ever seen — a little chapel 
with a little chancel, a little cloister, a little dormitory, and in the 
midst of the cloister a wonderful huge yew-tree which darkens the 
whole place. The abbey is famous in book and legend ; nor could 
two young lovers, or artists in search of the picturesque, or picnic- 
parties with the cold chicken and champagne in the distance, find a 
more charming place to while away a summer's day than in the park 
of Mr. Herbert. But depend on it, for show-places and the due 
enjoyment of scenery, that distance of cold chicken and champagne 
is the most pleasing perspective one can have. I would have sacri- 
ficed a mountain or two for the above, and would have pitched 
Mangerton into the lake for the sake of a friend with whom to enjoy 
the rest of the landscape. 

The walk through Mr, Herbert's demesne carries you, through all 
sorts of beautiful avenues, by a fine house which he is building in the 
Elizabethan style, and from which, as from the whole road, you 
command the most wonderful rich views of the lake. The shore 
breaks into little bays, which the water washes ; here and there are 
picturesque grey rocks to meet it, the bright grass as often, or the 
shrubs of every kind which bathe their roots in the lake. It was 
August, and the men before Turk Cottage were cutting a second crop 
of clover, as fine, seeming!}', as a first crop elsewhere : a short walk 



128 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK, 

from it brought us to a neat lodge, whence issued a keeper with a 
key, quite wilHng, for the consideration of sixpence, to conduct us to 
Turk waterfall. 

Evergreens and other trees, in theic brightest livery ; blue sky ; 
roaring water, here black, and yonder foaming of a dazzling white ; 
rocks shining in the dark places, or frowning black against the light, 
all the leaves and branches keeping up a perpetual waving and 
dancing round about the cascade : what is the use of putting down 
all this ? A man might describe the cataract of the Serpentine in 
exactly the same terms, and the reader be no wiser. Suffice it to say, 
that the Turk cascade is even handsomer than the before-mentioned 
waterfall of O'Sullivan, and that a man may pass half an hour there, 
and look, and listen, and muse, and not even feel the want of a com- 
panion, or so much as think of the iced champagne. There is just 
enough of savageness in the Turk cascade to make the view piqiiaiite. 
It is not, at this season at least, by any means fierce, only wild ; nor 
was the scene peopled by any of the rude, red-shanked figures that 
clustered about the trees of O'SulHvan's waterfall, — savages won't pay 
sixpence for the prettiest waterfall ever seen — so that this only was for 
the best of company. 

The road hence to Killarney carries one through Muckross village, 
a pretty cluster of houses, where the sketcher will find abundant 
materials for exercising his art and puzzling his hand. There are not 
only noble trees, but a green common and an old water-gate to a 
river, lined on either side by beds of rushes and discharging itself 
beneath an old mill-wheel. But the old mill-wheel was perfectly idle, 
like most men and mill-wheels in this country : by it is a ruinous 
house, and a fine garden of stinging nettles ; opposite it, on the 
common, is another ruinous house, with another garden containing 
the same plant ; and far away are sharp ridges of purple hills, which 
make as pretty a landscape as the eye can see. I don't know how it 
is, but throughout the country the men and the landscapes seem 
to be the same, and one and the other seem ragged, ruined, and 
cheerful. 

Having been employed all day (making some abominable attempts 
at landscape-drawing, which shall not be exhibited here), it became 
requisite, as the evening approached, to recruit an exhausted cockney 
stomach — which, after a very moderate portion of exercise, begins to 
sigh for beef-steaks in the most peremptory manner. Hard by is a 
fine hotel with a fine sign stretching along the road for the space of a 
dozen windows at least, and looking inviting enough. All the doors 



NEEDFUL REFORMS. 129 

were open, and I walked into a great number of rooms, but the only 
person I saw was a woman with trinkets of arbutus, who offered me, 
by way of refreshment, a walking-stick or a card-rack. I suppose 
everybody was at the races ; and an evilly-disposed person might 
have laid viabi-basse upon the great-coats which were there, and the 
silver-spoons, if by any miracle such things were kept — but Britannia- 
metal is the favourite composition in Ireland ; or else iron by itself ; 
or else iron that has been silvered over, but that takes good care to peep 
out at all the corners of the forks : and blessed is the traveller who has 
not other observations to make regarding his fork, besides the mere 
abrasion of the silver. 

This was the last day's race, and on the next morning (Sunday), 
all the thousands who had crowded to the race seemed trooping to 
the chapels, and the streets were blue with cloaks. Walking in to 
prayers, and without his board, came my young friend of the thimble- 
rig, and presently after sauntered in the fellow with the long coat, who 
had played at cards for sovereigns. I should like to hear the confes- 
sion of himself and friend the next time they communicate with his 
reverence. 

The extent of this town is very curious, and I should imagine its 
population to be much greater than five thousand, which was the 
number, according to Miss Macgillicuddy. Along the three main 
streets are numerous arches, down every one of which runs an alley, 
intersected by other alleys, and swarming with people. A stream or 
gutter runs commonly down these alleys, in which the pigs and 
children are seen paddling about. The men and women loll at their 
doors or windows, to enjoy the detestable prospect. I saw two pigs 
under a fresh-made deal staircase in one of the main streets near the 
Bridewell: two very well-dressed girls, with their hair in ringlets, 
were looking out of the parlour-window : almost all the glass in the 
upper rooms was of course smashed, the windows patched here and 
there (if the people were careful), the wood-work of the door loose, 
the whitewash peeling off, — afnd the house evidently not two years 
old. 

By the Bridewell is a busy potato-market, picturesque to the 
sketcher, if not very respectable to the merchant : here were the 
country carts and the country cloaks, and the shrill beggarly bargains 
going on — a world of shrieking and gesticulating, and talk, about a 
pennyworth of potatoes. 

All round the town miserable streets of cabins are stretched. You 
see people lolling at each door, women staring and combing their 

K 



I.^O 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



hair, men with their little pipes, children whose rags hang on by a 
miracle, idling in a gutter. Are we to set all this down to absenteeism, 
and pity poor injured Ireland ? Is the landlord's absence the reason 
why the house is filthy, and Biddy lolls in the porch all day? Upon 
my word, I have heard people talk as if, when Pat's thatch was blown 
off, the landlord ought to go fetch the straw and the ladder, and mend 
it himself. People need not be dirty if they are ever so idle ; if they 



fX- "^-r- 




are ever so poor, pigs and men need not live together. Half-an-hour's 
work, and digging a trench, might remove that filthy dunghill from 
that filthy window. The smoke might as well come out of the 
chimney as out of the door. Why should not Tim do that, instead of 
walking a hundred-and- sixty miles to a race ? The priests might do 
much more to effect these reforms than even the landlords themselves : 
and I hope now that the excellent Father Mathew has succeeded in 
arraying his clergy to work v>ith him in the abolition of drunkenness, 
they will attack the monster Dirt, with the same goodwill, and surely 
with the same success. 



JOURNEY TO TRALEE. 



iSr 



CHAPTER XIII. 



TRALEE — LISTOWEL—TARBERT. 



MADE the journey toTra- 
lee next day, upon one of 
the famous Bianconi cars 
— very comfortable con- 
veyances too, if the book- 
ing-officers would only 
receive as many persons 
as the car would hold, and 
not have too many on the 
seats. For half-an-hour 
before the car left Kil- 
larney, I observed people 
had taken their seats : 
and, let all travellers be 
cautious to do likewise, 
lest, although they have 
booked their places, they 
be requested to mount on 
the roof, and accommodate 
themselves on a band-box, 
or a pleasant deal trunk with a knotted rope, to prevent it from being 
slippery, while the corner of another box jolts against your ribs for the 
journey. I had put my coat on a place, and was stepping to it, when 
a lovely lady with great activity jumped up and pushed the coat on the 
roof, and not only occupied my seat, but insisted that her husband 
should have the next one to her. So there was nothing for it but to 
make a huge shouting with the book-keeper and call instantly for the 
taking down of my luggage, and vow my great gods that I would take 
a postchaise and make the office pay : on which, I am ashamed to say, 
some other person was made to give up a decently comfortable seat 
on the roof, which I occupied, the former occupant hanging on— heaven 
knows where or how. 

K 2 




132 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

A company of young squires were on the coach, and they talked of 
horse-racing and hunting punctually for three hours, during which time 
I do believe they did not utter one single word upon any other subject. 
What a wonderful faculty it is ? The writers of Natural Histories, in 
describing the noble horse, should say he is made not only to run, to 
carry burdens, &c., but to be talked about. What would hundreds of 
thousands of dashing young fellows do with their tongues, if they had 
not this blessed subject to discourse on? 

As far as the country went, there was here, to be sure, not much 
to be said. You pass through a sad-looking, bare, undulating country, 
with few trees, and poor stone-hedges, and poorer crops ; nor have I 
yet taken in Ireland so dull a ride. About half way between Tralee 
and Killarney is a wretched town, where horses are changed, and 
where I saw more hideous beggary than anywhere else, I think. And 
I was glad to get over this gloomy tract of country, and enter the 
capital of Kerry. 

It has a handsome description in the guide-books ; but, if I mistake 
not, the English traveller will find a stay of a couple of hours in the 
town quite sufficient to gratify his curiosity with respect to the place. 
There seems to be a great deal of poor business going on ; the town 
thronged with people as usual ; the shops large and not too splendid. 
There are two or three rows of respectable houses, and a mall, and the 
townspeople have the further privilege of walking in the neighbouring 
grounds of a handsome park, which the proprietor has liberally given 
to their use. Tralee has a newspaper, and boasts of a couple of 
clubs : the one I saw was a big white house, no windows broken, and 
looking comfortable. But the most curious sight of the town was the 
chapel, with the festival held there. It was the feast of the Assump- 
tion of the Virgin, (let those who are acquainted with the calendar and 
the facts it commemorates say what the feast was, and when it falls,) 
and all the country seemed to be present on the occasion : the chapel 
and the large court leading to it were thronged with worshippers, such 
as one never sees in our country, where devotion is by no means so 
crowded as here. Here, in the court-yard, there were thousands of 
them on their knees, rosary in hand, for the most part praying, and 
mumbling, and casting a wistful look round as the strangers passed. 
In a corner was an old man groaning in the agonies of death or colic, 
and a woman got off her knees to ask us for charity for the unhappy 
old fellow. In the chapel the crowd was enormous : the priest and his 
people were kneeling, and bowing, and humming, and chanting, and 
censer-rattling ; the ghostly crew being attended by a fellow that I 



THE CHAPEL, i33 

don't remember to have seen in continental churches, a sort of 
Catholic clerk, a black shadow to the parson, bowing his head 
when his reverence bowed, kneeling when he knelt, only three steps 
lower. 

But we who wonder at copes and candlesticks, see nothing strange 




in surplices and beadles. A Turk, doubtless, would sneer equally at 
each, and have you to understand that the only reasonable ceremonial 
was that which took place at his mosque. 

Whether right or wrong in point of ceremony, it was evident the 
heart of devotion was there : the immense dense crowd moaned and 



134 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

swayed, and you heard a hum of all sorts of wild ejaculations, each 
man praying seemingly for himself, while the service went on at the 
altar. The altar candles flickered red in the dark, steaming place, 
and every now and then from the choir you heard a sweet female voice 
chanting Mozart's music, which swept over the heads of the people a 
great deal more pure and delicious than the best incense that ever 
smoked out of the pot. 

On the chapel-floor, just at the entry, lay several people moaning, 
and tossing, and telling their beads. Behind the old woman was a 
font of holy water, up to which little children were clambering ; and 
in the chapel-yard Avere several old women, with tin cans full of the 
same sacred fluid, with which the people, as they entered, aspersed 
themselves with all their might, flicking a great quantity into their 
faces, and making a curtsey and a prayer at the same time. '• A 
pretty prayer, truly ! " says the parson's wife. " What sad, sad- 
benighted superstition ! " says the Independent minister's lady. Ah ! 
ladies, great as your intelligence is, yet think, when compared with the 
Supreme One, what a little difference there is after all between your 
husbands' very best extempore oration and the poor Popish creatures' ! 
One is just as far off Infinite Wisdom as the other : and so let us read 
the story of the woman and her pot of ointment, that most noble and 
charming of histories ; which equalizes the great and the small, the 
wise and the poor in spirit, and shows that their merit before heaven 
lies m doitig their best. 

When I came out of the chapel, the old fellow on the point of death 
was still howling and groaning in so vehement a manner, that I heartily 
trust he was an impostor, and that on receiving a sixpence he went 
home tolerably comfortable, having secured a maintenance for that 
day. But it will be long before I can forget the strange, wild scene, so 
entirely different was it from the decent and comfortable observances 
of our own Church. 

Three cars set off together from Tralee to Tarbert : three cars full 
to overflowing. The vehicle before us contained nineteen persons, 
half-a-dozen being placed in the receptacle called the well, and one 
clinging on as if by a miracle at the bar behind. What can people 
want at Tarbert ? I wondered ; or anywhere else, indeed, that they rush 
about from one town to another in this inconceivable way ? All the 
cars in all the towns seem to be thronged : people are perpetually 
hurrying from one dismal tumble-down town to another ; and yet no 
business is done anywhere that I can see. The chief part of the con- 
tents of our three cars was discharged at Listowel, to which, for the 



LISrOWEL TO TARBERT. 135 

greater part of the journey, the road was neither more cheerful nor 
picturesque than that from Killarney to Tralee. As, however, you 
reach Listowel, the country becomes better cultivated, the gentlemen's 
seats are more frequent, and the town itself, as seen from a little dis- 
tance, lies very prettily on a river, which is crossed by a handsome 
bridge, which leads to a neat-looking square, which contains a smartish 
church, which is flanked by a big Roman Catholic chapel, &c. An 
old castle, grey and ivy-covered, stands hard by. It was one of the 
strongholds of the lords of Kerry, whose burying-place (according 
to the information of the coachman) is seen at about a league from 
the town. 

But pretty as Listowel is from a distance, it has, on a more inti- 
mate acquaintance, by no means the prosperous appearance which a 
first glance gives it. The place seemed like a scene at a country 
theatre, once smartly painted by the artist ; but the paint has cracked 
in many places, the lines are worn away, and the whole piece only 
looks more shabby for the flaunting strokes of the brush which remain. 
And here, of course, came the usual crowd of idlers round the car : 
the epileptic idiot holding piteously out his empty tin snuff-box ; the 
brutal idiot, in an old soldier's coat, proflering his money-box and 
grinning and clattering the single halfpenny it contained ; the old 
man with no eyelids, calling upon you in the name of the Lord ; the 
woman with a child at her hideous, wrinkled breast ; the children 
without number. As for trade, there seemed to be none : a great 
Jeremy- Diddler kind of hotel stood hard by, swaggering and out-at- 
elbows, and six pretty girls were smiling out of a beggarly straw- 
bonnet shop, dressed as smartly as any gentleman's daughters of 
good estate. It was good, among the crowd of bustling, shrieking 
fellows, who were " jawing " vastly and doing nothing, to see how an 
English bagman, with scarce any words, laid hold of an ostler, carried 
him off vi et armis in the midst of a speech, in which the latter was 
going to explain his immense activity and desire to serve, pushed him 
into a stable, from which he issued in a twinkling, leading the ostler 
and a horse, and had his bag on the car and his horse off in about 
two minutes of time, while the natives were still shouting round about 
other passengers' portmanteaus. 

Some time afterwards, ,away we rattled on our own journey to 
Tarbert, having a postilion on the leader, and receiving, I must say, 
some graceful bows from the young bonnet-makeresses. But of all 
the roads over which human bones were ever jolted, the first part of 
this from Listowel to Tarbert deserves the palm. It shook us all 



136 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

into headaches ; it shook some nails out of the side of a box I had ; 
it sliook all the cords loose in a twinkling, and sent the baggage 
bumping about the passengers' shoulders. The coachman at the call 
of another English bagman, who was a fellow-traveller^ — the postilion 
at the call of the coachman, descended to re-cord the baggage. The 
English bagman had the \vhole mass of trunks and bags stoutly corded 
and firmly fixed in a few seconds ; the coachman helped him as far 
as his means allowed ; the postilion stood by with his hands in his 
pockets, smoking his pipe, and never offering to stir a finger. I said 
to him that 1 was delighted to see in a youth of sixteen that extreme 
activity and willingness to oblige, and that I would give him a hand- 
some remuneration for his services at the end of the journey : the 
young rascal grinned with all his might, understanding the satiric 
nature of the address perfectly w^ell ; but he did not take his hands 
out of his pockets for all that, until it was time to get on his horse 
again, and then, having carried us over the most difficult part of 
the journey, removed his horse and pipe, and rode away with a 
parting grin. 

The cabins along the road were not much better than those to be 
seen south of Tralee, but the people were far better clothed, and 
indulged in several places in the luxury of pigsties. Near the prettily 
situated village of Ballylongford, w^e came in sight of the Shannon 
mouth ; and a huge red round moon, that shone behind an old convent 
on the banks of the bright river, with dull green meadows between it 
and us, and white purple flats beyond, would be a good subject for the 
pencil of any artist whose wrist had not been put out of joint by the 
previous ten miles' journey. 

The town of Tarbert, in the guide-books and topographical dic- 
tionaries, flourishes considerably. You read of its port, its corn and 
provision stores, &c., and of certain good hotels ; for which as 
travellers we were looking with a laudable anxiety. The town, in 
fact, contains about a dozen of houses, some hundreds of cabins, and 
two hotels ; to one of which we were driven, and a kind landlady, 
conducting her half-dozen guests into a snug parlour, was for our 
ordering refreshment immediately, — which I certainly should have 
done, but for the ominous whisper of a fellow in the crowd as we 
descended (of course a disinterested patron of the other house), 
who hissed into my ears, " Ask to see the beds : " which proposal, 
accordingly, I made before coming to any determination regarding 
supper. 

The worthy landlady eluded my question several times with great 



LISTOWEL TO TARBERT. 137 

skill and good-humour, but it became at length necessary to answer it ; 
which she did by putting on as confident an air as possible, and lead- 
ing the way upstairs to a bed-room, where there was a good large 
comfortable bed certainly. 

The only objection to the bed, hoAvever, was that it contained a 
sick lady, whom the hostess proposed to eject without any ceremony, 
saying that she was a great deal better, and going to get up that very 
evening. However, none of us had the heart to tyrannize over lovely 
woman in so painful a situation, and the hostess had the grief of 
seeing four out of her five guests repair across the way to " Bral- 
laghan's " or " Gallagher's Hotel," — the name has fled from my 
memory, but it is the big hotel in the place ; and unless the sick lady 
has quitted the other inn, which most likely she has done by this time, 
the English traveller v/ill profit by this advice, and on arrival at Tar- 
bert will have himself transported to " Gallagher's " at once. 

The next morning a car carried us to Tarbert Point, where there 
is a pier not yet completed, and a Preventive station, and where the 
Shannon steamers touch, that ply between Kilrush and Limerick. 
Here lay the famous river before us, with low banks and rich pastures 
on either side. 



138 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



LIMERICK. 



CAPITAL steamer, which 
on this day was thronged 
with people, carried us for 
about four hours down 
the noble stream and 
landed us at Limerick 
quay. The character of 
the landscape on either 
side the stream is not 
particularly picturesque, 
but large, liberal, and 
prosperous. Gentle sweeps 
of rich meadows and corn- 
fields cover the banks, 
and some, though not too 
many, gentlemen's parks 
and plantations rise here 
and there. But the land- 
scape was somehow more pleasing than if it had been merely pictur- 
esque ; and, especially after coming out of that desolate county of 
Kerry, it was pleasant for the eye to rest upon this peaceful, rich, and 
generous scene. The first aspect of Limerick is very smart and 
pleasing : fine neat quays with considerable liveliness and bustle, a very 
handsome bridge (the Wellesley Bridge) before the spectator ; who, 
after a walk through two long and flourishing streets, stops at length at 
one of the best inns in Ireland — the large, neat, and prosperous one 
kept by Mr. Cruise. Except at Youghal, and the poor fellow whom 
the Englishman belaboured at Glengariff, Mr. Cruise is the only land- 
lord of an inn I have had the honour to see in Ireland. I believe 
these gentlemen commonly (and very naturally) prefer riding with 
the hounds, or manly sports, to attendance on their guests ; and the 




LIMERICK. 139 

landladies, if they prefer to play the piano, or to have a game of cards in 
the parlour, only show a taste at which no one can wonder : for who 
can expect a lady to be troubling herself with vulgar chance- 
customers, or looking after Molly in the bed-room or waiter Tim in the 
cellar ? 

Now, beyond this piece of information regarding the excellence 
of Mr. Cruise's hotel, which every traveller knows, the writer of this 
doubts very much whether he has anything to say about Limerick 
that is worth the trouble of saying or reading. I can't attempt to 
describe the Shannon, only to say that on board the steamboat there 
was a piper and a bugler, a hundred of genteel persons coming back 
from donkey-riding and bathing at Kilkee, a couple of heaps of raw 
hides that smelt very foully, a score of women nursing children, and 
a lobster-vendor, who vowed to me on his honour that he gave eight- 
pence a-piece for his fish, and that he had boiled them only the day 
before ; but when I produced the Guide-book, and solemnly told him 
to swear upon that to the truth of his statement, the lobster-seller 
turned away quite abashed, and would not be brought to support his 
previous assertion at all. Well, this is no description of the Shannon, 
as you have no need to be told, and other travelling cockneys will, 
no doubt meet neither piper nor lobster-seller, nor raw hides ; nor, if 
they come to the inn. where this is written, is it probable that they 
will hear, as I do this present moment, two fellows with red whiskers, 
and immense pomp and noise and blustering with the waiter, con- 
clude by ordering a pint of ale between them. All that one can hope 
to do is, to give a sort of notion of the movement and manners of the 
people ; pretending by no means to offer a description of places, but 
simply an account of what one sees in them. 

So that if any traveller after staying two days in Limerick should 
think fit to present the reader with forty or fifty pages of dissertation 
upon the antiquities and history of the place, upon the state of com- 
merce, religion, education, the public may be pretty well sure that 
the traveller has been at work among the guide-books, and filching 
extracts from the topographical and local works. 

They say there are three towns to make one Limerick : there is 
the Irish Town on the Clare side; the Eiiglish Town with its old castle 
(which has sustained a deal of battering and blows from Danes, from 
tierce Irish kings, from English warriors who took an interest in the 
place, Henry Secundians, Elizabethans, Cromwellians, and, vice versa, 
Jacobites, King Williamites, — and nearly escaped being in the hands 
of the Robert Emmettites) ; and finally the district called Newtown- 



I40 THE IRISH SKETCH _BOOK. 

Pery. In walking through this latter tract, you are at first half led to 
believe that you are arrived in a second Liverpool, so tall are the 
warehouses and broad the quays ; so neat and trim a street of near a 
mile which stretches before you. But even this mile-long street does 
not, in a few minutes, appear to be so wealthy and prosperous as it 
shows at a first glance ; for of the population that throng the streets, 
two-fifths are barefooted women, and two-fifths more ragged men : 
and the most part of the shops which have a grand show with them 
appear, when looked into, to be no better than they should be, being 
empty makeshift-looking places with their best goods outside. 

Here, in this handsome street too, is a handsome club-house, with 
plenty of idlers, you may be sure, lolling at the portico ; likewise you 
see numerous young officers, with very tight waists and absurd brass 
shell-epaulettes to their little absurd frock-coats, walking the pave- 
ment — the dandies of the street. Then you behold whole troops of 
pear-, apple-, and plum-women, selling very raw, green-looking fruit, 
which, indeed, it is a wonder that any one should eat and live. The 
houses are bright red — the street is full and gay, carriages and cars in 
plenty go jingling by — dragoons in red are every now and then clatter- 
ing up the street, and as upon every car which passes with ladies in it 
you are sure (I don't know how it is) to see a pretty one, the great 
street of Limerick is altogether a very brilliant and animated sight. 

If the ladies of the place are pretty, indeed the vulgar are scarcely 
less so. I never saw a greater number of kind, pleasing, clever-look- 
ing faces among any set of people. There seem, however, to be two 
sorts of physiognomies which are common : the pleasing and some- 
what melancholy one before mentioned, and a square, high-cheeked, 
flat-nosed physiognomy, not uncommonly accompanied by a hideous 
staring head of dry red hair. Except, however, in the latter case, the 
hair flowing loose and long is a pretty characteristic of the women of 
the country : many a fair one do you see at the door of the cabin, or 
the poor shop in the town, combing complacently that "greatest 
ornament of female beauty," as Mr. Rowland justly calls it. 

The generality of the women here seem also much better clothed 
than in Kerry ; and I saw many a one going barefoot, whose gown 
was nevertheless a good one, and whose cloak was of fine cloth. Like- 
wise it must be remarked, that the beggars in Limerick were by no 
means so numerous as those in Cork, or in many small places through 
which I have passed. There were but five, strange to say, round the 
mail-coach as we went away ; and, indeed, not a great number in the 
streets. 



LIMERICK. 141 

The belles-lettres seem to be by no means so well cultivated here 
as in Cork. I looked in vain for a Limerick guide-book : I saw but 
one good shop of books, and a little trumpery circulating library, 
which seemed to be provided with those immortal works of a year 
old — which, having been sold for half-a-guinea the volume at first, 
are suddenly found to be worth only a shilling. Among these, let 
me mention, with perfect resignation to the decrees of fate, the works 
of one Titmarsh : they were rather smartly bound by an enterprising 
pubHsher, and I looked at them in Bishop Murphy's Library at Cork, 
in a book-shop in the remote little town of Ennis, and elsewhere, with 
a melancholy tenderness. Poor flowerets of a season ! (and a 
very short season too), let me be allowed to salute your scattered 
leaves with a passing sigh ! . . . . Besides the book-shops, I observed 
in the long, best street of Limerick a half-dozen of what are called 
French-shops, with knicknacks, German-silver chimney-ornaments, 
and paltry finery. In the windows of these you saw a card with 
" Cigars ; " in the book-shop, " Cigars ; " at the grocer's, the whisky- 
shop, " Cigars : " everybody sells the noxious weed, or makes believe 
to sell it, and I know no surer indication of a struggling, uncertain 
trade than that same placard of " Cigars." I went to buy some of the 
pretty Limerick gloves (they are chiefly made, as I have since dis- 
covered, at Cork). I think the man who sold them had a patent from 
the Queen, or his Excellency, or both, in his window : but, seeing a 
friend pass just as I entered the shop, he brushed past, and held his 
friend in conversation for some minutes in the street, — about the 
Killarney races no doubt, or the fun going on at Kilkee. I might 
have swept away a bagful of walnut-shells containing the flimsy 
gloves : but instead walked out, making him a low bow, and saying I 
would call next week. He said "wouldn't I wait ?" and resumed his 
conversation ; and, no doubt, by this way of doing business, is 
making a handsome independence. I asked one of the ten thousand 
fruit-women the price of her green pears. " Twopence a-piece," she 
said; and there were two little ragged beggars standing by, who 
were munching the fruit. A book-shop woman made me pay three- 
pence for a bottle of ink which usually costs a penny ; a potato-woman 
told me that her potatoes cost fourteenpence a stone : and all these 
ladies treated the stranger with a leering, wheedhng servility which 
made me long to box their ears, were it not that the man who lays his 
hand upon a woman is an &c., whom 'twere gross flattery to call a 
what-d'ye-call-'im ? By the way, the man who played Duke Aranza 



142 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

at Cork delivered the celebrated claptrap above alluded to as 
follows : — 

" The man who lays his hand upon a woman, 
Save in the way of kindness, is a villain, 
Whom 'twere a gross piece of flattery to call a coward ; " 

and looked round calmly for the applause, which deservedly followed 
his new reading of the passage. 

To return to the apple-women : — legions of ladies were employed 
through the town upon that traffic ; there were really thousands of 
them, clustering upon the bridges, squatting down in doorways and 
vacant sheds for temporary markets, marching and crying their sour 
goods in all the crowded lanes of the city. After you get out of the 
Main Street the handsome part of the town is at an end, and you 
suddenly find yourself in such a labyrinth of busy swarming poverty 
and squalid commerce as never was seen — no, not in Saint Giles's, 
where Jew and Irishman side by side exhibit their genius for dirt. 
Here every house almost was a half ruin, and swarming with people : 
in the cellars you looked down and saw a barrel of herrings, which a 
merchant was dispensing ; or a sack of meal, which a poor dirty 
woman sold to people poorer and dirtier than herself : above was a 
tinman, or a shoemaker, or other craftsman, his battered ensign at the 
door, and his small wares peering through the cracked panes of his 
shop. As for the ensign, as a matter of course the name is ne\er 
written in letters of the same size. You read — 









or some similar signboard. High and low, in this country, they 
begin things on too large a scale. They begin churches too big and 
can't finish them; mills and houses too big, and are ruined before 
they are done ; letters on signboards too big, and are up in a corner 
before the inscription is finished. There is something quite strange, 
really, in this general consistency. 

Well, over James Hurley, or Pat Hanlahan, you will most likely 
see another board of another tradesman, with a window to the full as 
curious. Above Tim Carthy evidently lives another family. There 
are long-haired girls of fourteen at every one of the windows, and 



LIMERICK. 143 

dirty children everywhere. In the cellars, look at them in dingy 
white nightcaps over a bowl of stirabout ; in the shop, paddling up 
and down the ruined steps, or issuing from beneath the black countei" ; 
up above, see the girl of fourteen is tossing and dandling one of them : 
and a pretty tender sight it is, in the midst of this filth and wretched- 
ness, to see the women and children together. It makes a sunshine 
in the dark place, and somehow half reconciles one to it. Children 
are everywhere. Look out of the nasty streets into the still more 
nasty back lanes : there they are, sprawling at every door and court, 
paddling in every puddle ; and in about a fair proportion to every six 
children an old woman — a very old, blear-eyed, ragged woman — who 
makes believe to sell something out of a basket, and is perpetually 
calling upon the name of the Lord. For every three ragged old 
women you will see two ragged old men, praying and moaning like 
the females. And there is no lack of young men, either, though I 
never could make out what they were about : they loll about the 
street, chiefly conversing in knots ; and in every street you will be 
pretty sure to see a recruiting- sergeant, with gay ribbons in his cap, 
loitering about with an eye upon the other loiterers there. The buzz 
and hum and chattering of this crowd is quite inconceivable to us in 
England, where a crowd is generally silent. As a person with a 
decent coat passes, they stop in their talk and say, " God bless you 
for a fine gentleman ! " In these crowded streets, where all are 
beggars, the beggary is but small : only the very old and hideous ven- 
ture to ask for a penny, otherwise the competition W9uld be too great. 
As for the buildings that one lights upon every now and then in 
the midst of such scenes as this, they are scarce worth the trouble to 
examine : occasionally you come on a chapel with sham Gothic 
windows and a little belfry, one of the Catholic places of worship ; 
then, placed in some quiet street, a neat-looking Dissenting meeting- 
house. Across the river yonder, as you issue out from the street, 
is a handsome hospital ; near it the old cathedral, a barbarous old 
turreted edifice — of the fourteenth century it is said : how different 
to the sumptuous elegance which characterizes the English and con- 
tinental churches of the same period ! Passing by it, and walking down 
other streets, — black, ruinous, swarming, dark, hideous, — you come 
upon the barracks and the walks of the old castle, and from it on to an 
old bridge, from which the view is a fine one. On one side are the 
grey bastions of the castle; beyond them, in the midst of the broad 
stream, stands a huge mill that looks like another castle ; further yet 
is the handsome new Wellesley Bridge, with some little craft upon the 



144 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

river, and the red warehouses of the New Town looking prosperous 
enough. The Irish Town stretches away to the right ; there are 
pretty villas beyond it ; and on the bridge are walking twenty-four 
young girls, in parties of four and five, with their arms round each 
other's waists, swaying to and fro, and singing or chattering, as happy 
as if they had shoes to their feet. Yonder you see a dozen pair of 
red legs glittering in the water, their owners being employed in 
washing their own or other people's rags. 

The Guide-book mentions that one of the aboriginal forests of the 
country is to be seen at a few miles from Limerick, and thinking that 
an aboriginal forest would be a huge discovery, and form an instruc- 
tive and delightful feature of the present work, I hired a car in order 
to visit the same, and pleased myself with visions of gigantic oaks, 
Druids, Norma, wildernesses and awful gloom, which would fill the 
soul with horror. The romance of the place was heightened by a 
fact stated by the carman, viz. that until late years robberies were 
very frequent about the wood ; the inhabitants of the district being a 
wild, lawless race. Moreover, there are numerous castles round about, 
— and for what can a man wish more than robbers, castles, and an 
aboriginal wood ? 

The way to these wonderful sights lies through the undulating 
grounds which border the Shannon ; and though the view is by no 
means a fine one, I know few that are pleasanter than the sight of 
these rich, golden, peaceful plains, with the full harvest waving on 
them and just ready for the sickle. The hay harvest was likewise 
just being concluded, and the air loaded with the rich odour of the 
hay. Above the trees, to your left, you saw the mast of a ship, per- 
haps moving along, and every now and then caught a glimpse of the 
Shannon, and the low grounds and plantations of the opposite county 
of Limerick. Not an unpleasant addition to the landscape, too, was 
a sight which I do not remember to have witnessed often in this 
country — that of several small and decent farm-houses, with their 
stacks and sheds and stables, giving an air of neatness and plenty that 
the poor cabin with its potato-patch does not present. Is it on account 
of the small farms that the land seems richer and better cultivated 
here than in most other parts of the country t Some of the houses in 
the midst of the warm summer landscape had a strange appearance, 
for it is often the fashion to whitewash the roofs of the houses, leaving 
the slates of the walls of their natural colour : hence, and in the 
evening especially, contrasting with the purple sky, the house-tops 
often looked as if they were covered with snow. 



THE BUN RATTY ROMANCE. 145 

According to the Guide-book's promise, the castles began soon to 
appear ; at one point we could see three of these ancient mansions 
in a line, each seemingly with its little grove of old trees, in the midst 
of the bare but fertile country. By this time, too, we had got into a 
road so abominably bad and rocky, that I began to believe more and 
more with regard to the splendour of the aboriginal forest, which 
must be most aboriginal and ferocious indeed when approached by 
such a savage path. After travelling through a couple of lines of wall 
with plantations on either side, I at length became impatient as to the 
forest, and, much to my disappointment, was told this was it. For 
the fact is, that though the forest has always been there, the trees 
have not, the proprietors cutting them regularly when grown to no 
great height, and the monarchs of the woods which I saw round 
about would scarcely have afforded timber for a bed-post. Nor did 
any robbers make their appearance in this wilderness : with which 
disappointment, however, I was more willing to put up than with the 
former one. 

But if the wood and the robbers did not come up to my romantic 
notions, the old Castle of Bunratty fully answered them, and indeed 
should be made the scene of a romance, in three volumes at least. 

" It is a huge, square tower, with four smaller ones at each angle ; 
and you mount to the entrance by a steep flight of steps, being com- 
manded all the way by the cross-bows of two of the Lord De Clare's 
retainers, the points of whose weapons may be seen lying upon the 
ledge of the little narrow meitrtrih'e on each side of the gate. A 
venerable seneschal, with the keys of office, presently opens the little 
back postern, and you are admitted to the great hall— a noble 
chamber, pardi I some seventy feet in length and thirty high. 'Tis 
hung round with a thousand trophies of war and chase, — the golden 
helmet and spear of the Irish king, the long yellow mantle he wore, 
and the huge brooch that bound it. Hugo De Clare slew him before 
the castle in 1305, when he and his kernes attacked it. Less success- 
ful in 1314, the gallant Hugo saw his village of Bunratty burned 
round his tower by the son of the slaughtered O'Neil ; and, sallying 
out to avenge the insult, was brought back — a corpse ! Ah ! what 
was the pang that shot through the fair bosom of the Lady Adela 
when she knew that 'twas the hand of Redinond O^Neil sped the shaft 
which slew her sire ! 

"You listen to this sad story, reposing on an oaken settle (covered 
with deer's-skin taken in the aboriginal forest of Carclow hard by) 
placed at the enormous hall-fire. Here sits Thonom an Diaoul, 

L 



146 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

' Dark Thomas/ the bhnd harper of the race of De Clare, who loves 
to tell the deeds of the lordly family. ^Penetrating in disguise,' 
he continues, ' into the castle, Redmond of the golden locks sought 
an interview with the Lily of Bunratty ; but she screamed when she 
saw him under the disguise of the gleeman, and said, " My father's 
blood is in the hall ! " At this, up started fierce Sir Ranulph. " Ho, 
Bludyer ! " he cried to his squire, " call me the hangman and Father 
John ; seize me, vassals, yon villain in gleeman's guise, and hang him 
on the gallows on the tower ! " ' 

" ' Will it please ye walk to the roof of the old castle and see the 
beam on which the lords of the place execute the refractory ? ' ' Nay, 
marry,' say you, ' by my spurs of knighthood, I have seen hanging 
enough in merry England, and care not to see the gibbets of Irish 
kernes.' The harper would have taken fire at this speech reflecting 
on his country ; but luckily here Gulph, your English squire, entered 
from the pantler (with whom he had been holding a parley), and 
brought a man chet of bread, and bade ye, in the Lord De Clare's name, 
crush a cup of Ypocras, well spiced, pardi^ and by the fair hands of 
the Lady Adela. 

" ' The Lady Adela ! ' say you, starting up in amaze. * Is not 
this the year of grace 1600, and lived she not three hundred years 
syne ? ' 

" ' Yes, Sir Knight, but Bunratty tower hath another Lily : will it 
please you see your chamber ? ' 

" So saying, the seneschal leads you up a winding stair in one of 
the turrets, past one little dark chamber and another, without a fire- 
place, without rushes (how different from the stately houses of Nonsuch 
or Audley End !), and, leading you through another vast chamber 
above the baronial hall, similar in size, but decorated with tapestries 
and rude carvings, you pass the little chapel ('Marry,' says the 
steward, ' many would it not hold, and many do not come ! ') until at 
last you are located in the little cell appropriated to you. Some rude 
attempts have been made to render it fitting for the stranger ; but, 
though more neatly arranged than the hundred other little chambers 
which the castle contains, in sooth 'tis scarce fitted for the serving- 
man, much more for Sir Reginald, the English knight. 

" While you are looking at a bouquet of flowers, which lies on the 
settle — magnolias, geraniums, the blue flowers of the cactus, and in 
the midst of the bouquet, one lily ; whilst you wonder whose fair hands 
could have culled the flowers — hark ! the horns are blowing at the 
drawbridge and the warder lets the portcullis down. You rush to your 



THE BUNRATTY ROMANCE, 147 

window, a stalwart knight rides over the gate, the hoofs of his black 
courser clanging upon the planks. A host of wild retainers wait round 
about him : see, four of them carry a stag, that hath been slain no 
doubt in the aboriginal forest of Carclow. ^ By my fay! 'say you, ' 'tis 
a stag of ten.' . :} m? -t^^i - 

"But who is that yonder on the grey palfrey, conversing so 
prettily, and holding the sportive animal with so Hght a rein ? — 
a light green riding-habit and ruff, a little hat with a green plume — 
sure it must be a lady, and a fair one. She looks up. O blessed 
Mother of Heaven, that look! those eyes that smile, those 
sunny golden ringlets ! It \s—it is the Lady Adela : the Lily of 
Bunrat * * * " 

If the reader cannot finish the other two volumes for him or her- 
self, he or she never deserves to have a novel from a circulating 
library again : for my part, I will take my affidavit the English knight 
will marry the Lily at the end of the third volume, having previously 
slain the other suitor at one of the multifarious sieges of Limerick. 
And I beg to say that the historical part of this romance has been 
extracted carefully from the Guide-book : the topographical and 
descriptive portion being studied on the spot. A policeman shows you 
over it, halls, chapels, galleries, gibbets and all. The huge old tower 
was, until late years, inhabited by the family of the proprietor, who 
built himself a house in the midst of it : but he has since built another 
in the park opposite, and half-a-dozen " Peelers," with a commodity of 
wives and children, now inhabit Bunratty. On the gate where we en- 
tered were numerous placards offering rewards for the apprehension 
of various country offenders ; and a turnpike, a bridge, and a quay have 
sprung up from the place which Red Redmond (or anybody else) 
burned. 



On our road to Galway the next day, we were carried once more 
by the old tower, and for a considerable distance along the fertile 
banks of the Fergus lake, and a river which pours itself into the 
Shannon. The first town we come to is Castle Clare, which lies con- 
veniently on the river, with a castle, a good bridge, and many quays 
and warehouses, near which a small ship or two were lying. The 
place was once the chief town of the county, but is wretched and ruinous 
now, being made up for the most part of miserable thatched cots, 
round which you see the usual dusky population. The drive hence to 
Ennis hes through a country which is by no means so pleasant as that 

L 2 



148 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

rich one we have passed through, being succeeded " by that craggy, 
bleak, pastoral district which occupies so large a portion of the lime- 
stone district of Clare." Ennis, likewise, stands upon the Fergus — a 
busy little narrow-streeted, foreign-looking town, approached by half- 
a-mile of thatched cots, in which I am not ashamed to confess that I 
saw some as pretty faces as over any half-mile of country I ever tra- 
velled in my life. 

A great light of the Catholic Church, who was of late a candle- 
stick in our own communion, was on the coach with us, reading 
devoutly out of a breviary on many occasions along the road. A 
crowd of black coats and heads, with that indescribable look which 
belongs to the Catholic clergy, were evidently on the look-out for 
the coach ; and as it stopped, one of them came up to me with a low 

bow, and asked if I was the Honourable and Reverend Mr. S ? 

How I wish I had answered him I was ! It would have been a grand 
scene. The respect paid to this gentleman's descent is quite absurd : 
the papers bandy his title about with pleased emphasis — the Galway 
paper calls him the very reverend. There is something in the love 
for rank almost childish : witness the adoration of George IV. ; the 
pompous joy with which John Tuam records his correspondence with 
a great man ; the continual My-Lording of the Bishops, the Right- 
Honourabling of Mr. O'Connell — which title his party papers delight 
on all occasions to give him — nay, the delight of that great man him- 
self when first he attained the dignity : he figured in his robes in 
the most good-humoured simple delight at having them, and went 
to church forthwith in them; as if such a man wanted a title before his 
name. 

At Ennis, as well as everywhere else in Ireland, there were of 
course the regular number of swaggering-looking buckeens and 
shabby-genteel idlers to watch the arrival of the mail-coach. A poor 
old idiot, with his grey hair tied up in bows, and with a ribbon behind, 
thrust out a very fair soft hand with taper fingers, and told me, nod- 
ding his head very wistfully, that he had no father nor mother : upon 
which score he got a penny. Nor did the other beggars round the 
carriage who got none seem to grudge the poor fellow's good fortune. 
I think when one poor wretch has a piece of luck, the others seem 
glad here : and they promise to pray for you just the same if you give 
as if you refuse. 

The town was swarming with people ; the little dark streets, 
which twist about in all directions, being full of cheap merchandise 
and its vendors. Whether there are many buyers, I can't say. This 



i:aw/s. 149 

is written opposite the market-place in Galway, where I have watched 
a stall a hundred times in the course of the last three hours and seen 
no money taken : but at every place I come to, I can't help wonder- 
ing at the numbers ; it seems market-day everywhere — apples, pigs, 
and potatoes being sold all over the kingdom. There seem to be 
some good shops in those narrow streets ; among others, a decent 
little library, where I bought, for eighteenpence, six volumes of works 
strictly Irish, that will serve for a half-hour's gossip on the next rainy 
day. 

The road hence to Gort carried us at first by some dismal, lonely- 
looking, reedy lakes, through a melancholy country ; an open village 
standing here and there, with a big chapel in the midst of it, almost 
always unfinished in some point or other. Crossing at a bridge near 
a place called Tubbor, the coachman told us we were in the famous 
county of Galway, which all readers of novels admire in the warlike 
works of Maxwell and Lever ; and, dismal as the country had been in 
Clare, I think on the northern side of the bridge it was dismaller still 
— the stones not only appearing in the character of hedges, but strew- 
ing over whole fields, in which sheep were browsing as well as they 
could. 

We rode for miles through this stony, dismal district^ seeing more 
lakes now and anon, with fellows spearing eels in the midst. Then 
we passed the plantations of Lord Gort's Castle of Loughcooter, and 
presently came to the town which bears his name, or viw ve?'sd. It is 
a regularly-built little place, with a square and street : but it looked 
as if it wondered how the deuce it got into the midst of such a desolate 
country, and seemed to do7r itself there considerably. It had nothing 
to do, and no society. 

A short time before arriving at Oranmore, one has glimpses of the 
sea, which comes opportunely to relieve the dulness of the land. 
Between Gort and that place we passed through little but the most 
vvoful country, in the midst of which was a village, where a horse-fair 
was held, and where (upon the word of the coachman) all the bad 
horses of the country were to be seen. The man was commissioned, 
no doubt, to buy for his employers, for two or three merchants were 
on the look-out for him, and trotted out their cattle by the side of the 
coach. A very good, neat-looking, smart-trotting chestnut horse, of 
seven years old, was offered by the owner for 8/. ; a neat brown mare 
for 10/., and a better (as I presume) for 14/. ; but all looked very 
respectable, and I have the coachman's word for it that they were 
good serviceable horses. Oranmore, with an old castle in the midst 



ISO THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

of the village, woods, and park-plantations round about, and the bay 
beyond it, has a pretty and romantic look ; and the drive, of about 
four miles thence to Galway, is the most picturesque part perhaps of 
the fifty miles' ride from Limerick. The road is tolerably wooded. 
You see the town itself, with its huge old church-tower, stretching 
along the bay, "backed by hills linking into the long chain of 
mountains which stretch across Connemara and the Joyce country." 
A suburb of cots that seems almost endless has, however, an end at 
last among the houses of the town ; and a little fleet of a couple 
of hundred fishing-boats was manoeuvring in the bright waters of the 
bay. 



GALIVAV. 



151 



CHAPTER XV. 

GALWAY— "KILROY'S HOTEL*'— GALW AY NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS- 
FIRST NIGHT : AN EVENING WITH CAPTAIN FREENY. 



HEN it is stated that, 
throughout the town of 
Galway, you cannot get 
;i cigar which costs more 
than twopence, Londoners 
may imagine the strange- 
ness and remoteness of the 
place. The rain poured 
down for two days after 
our arrival at " Kilroy's 
Hotel." An umbrella 
under such circumstances 
is a poor resource : self- 
contemplation is far more 
amusing; especially 
smoking, and a game at 
cards, if any one will be 
so good as to play. 
But there was no one in the hotel coffee-room who was inclined 
for the sport. The company there, on the day of our arrival, con- 
sisted of two coach-passengers, — a Frenchman who came from Sligo, 
and ordered mutton-chops and /raid potatoes for dinner by himself, 
a turbot which cost two shillings, and in Billingsgate would have 
been worth a guinea, and a couple of native or inhabitant bachelors, 
who frequented the table-d''hdte. 

By the way, besides these there were at dinner two turkeys (so 
that Mr. Kilroy's two-shilling ordinary was by no means ill supplied) ; 
and, as a stranger, I had the honour of carving these animals, which 
were dispensed in rather a singular way. There are, as it is generally 
known, to two turkeys four wings. Of the four passengers, one ate no 
turkey, one had a pinion, another the remaining part of the wing, and 




152 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

the fourth gentleman took the other three wings for his share. Does 
everybody in Gal way eat three wings when there are two turkeys for 
dinner? One has heard wonders of the country, — the dashing, daring, 
duelling, desperate, rollicking, whisky-drinking people : but this 
wonder beats all. When I asked the Galway turkiphagus (there is no 
other word, for Turkey was invented long after Greece) "if he would 
take a third wing ?" with a peculiar satiric accent on the words third 
iviiig, which cannot be expressed in writing, but which the occasion 
fully merited, I thought perhaps that, following the custom of the 
country, where everybody, according to Maxw-elland Lever, challenges 
everybody else, — I thought the Galwagian would call me out ; but no 
such thing. He only said, " If you plase, sir," in the blandest way in 
the world ; and gobbled up the limb in a twinkling. 

As an encouragement, too, for persons meditating that important 
change of condition, the gentleman was a teetotaller : he took but one 
glass of water to that intolerable deal of bubblyjock. Galway must 
be very much changed since the days when Maxwell and Lever knew 
it. Three turkey-wings and a glass of water ! But the man cannot 
be the representative of a class, that is clear : it is physically and 
arithmetically impossible. They can't all eat three wings of two 
turkeys at dinner ; the turkeys could not stand ir, let alone the men. 
These wings must have been '-'■ no7i nsitatcE {nee temies) pennccp 
But no more of these flights ; let us come to sober realities. 

The fact is, that when the rain is pouring down in the streets the 
traveller has little else to remark except these peculiarities of his 
fellow-travellers and inn-sojourners : and, lest one should be led into 
further personalities, it is best to quit that water-drinking gormandizer 
at once, and retiring to a private apartment, to devote one's self to quiet 
observation and the acquisition of knowledge, either by looking out of 
the wdndow and examining mankind, or by perusing books, and so 
living with past heroes and ages. 

As for the knowledge to be had by lookmg out of window, it is 
this evening not much. A great, wide, blank, bleak, water-whipped 
square lies before the bed-room window ; at the opposite side of which 
is to be seen the opposition hotel, looking even more bleak and 
cheerless than that over which Mr. Kilroy presides. Large dismal 
warehouses and private houses form three sides of the square ; and in 
the midst is a bare pleasure-ground surrounded by a growth of gaunt 
iron-railings, the only plants seemingly in the place. Three triangular 
edifices that look somewhat like gibbets stand in the paved part of the 
square, but the victims that are consigned to their fate under these 



A WET DAY. 



i53 



triangles are only potatoes, which are weighed there ; and, in spite of 
the torrents of rain, a crowd of barefooted, redpetticoated women, 
and men in grey coats and flower-pot hats, are pursuing their httle 
bargains with the utmost calmness. The rain seems to make no 
impression on the males ; nor do the women guard against it more 
than by flinging a petticoat over their heads, and so stand bargaining 
and chattering in Irish, their figures indefinitely reflected in the 
shining, varnished pavement. Donkeys and pony-carts innumerable 




stand around, similarly reflected ; and m the baskets upon these 
vehicles you see shoals of herrings lying. After a short space this 
prospect becomes somewhat tedious, and one looks to other sources 
of consolation. 

The eighteenpennyworth of little books purchased at Ennis in the 
morning came here most agreeably to my aid ; and indeed they afford 
many a pleasant hour's reading. Like the " Bibliotheque Grise," 
which one sees in the French cottages in the provinces, and the 
German " Volksbiicher," both of which contain stores of old legends 
that are still treasured in the country, these yellow-covered books are 
prepared for the people chiefly ; and have been sold for many long 



154 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

years before the march of knowledge began to banish Fancy out of 
the world, and gave us, in place of the old fairy tales, Penny 
Magazines and similar wholesome works. Where are the little 
harlequin-backed story-books that used to be read by children in 
England some thirty years ago ? Where such authentic narratives as 
" Captain Bruce's Travels," " The Dreadful Adventures of Sawney 
Bean," &c., which were commonly supphed to little boys at school 
by the same old lady who sold oranges and alycompayne ? — they are 
all gone out of the world, and replaced by such books as " Con- 
versations on Chemistry," " The Little Geologist," " Peter Parley's 
Tales about the Binomial Theorem," and the like. The world will 
be a dull world some hundreds of years hence, when Fancy shall be 
dead, and ruthless Science (that has no more bowels than a steam- 
engine) has killed her. 

It is a comfort, meanwhile, to come on occasions on some of the 
good old stories and biographies. These books were evidently 
written before the useful had attained its present detestable popularity. 
There is nothing useful here, that's certain : and a man will be 
puzzled to extract a precise moral out of the " Adventures of Mr. James 
Freeny ; " or out of the legends in the " Hibernian Tales ; " or out of 
the lamentable tragedy of the " Battle of Aughrim," writ in most doleful 
Anglo-Irish verse. But are we to reject all things that have not a 
moral tacked to them .^ " Is there any moral shut Vv^ithin the bosom 
of the rose ? " And yet, as the same noble poet sings (giving a 
smart slap to the utility people the w^hile), " useful applications lie in 
art and nature," and every man may find a moral suited to his mind 
in them ; or, if not a moral, an occasion for moralising. 

Honest Freeny's adventures (let us begin with history and historic 
tragedy, and leave fancy for future consideration), if they have a 
moral, have that dubious one which the poet admits may be elicited 
from a rose ; and which every man may select according to his mind. 
And surely this is a far better and more comfortable system of moral- 
ising than that in the fable-books, where you are obliged to accept 
the story with the inevitable moral corollary that luill stick close to it. 

Whereas, in Freeny's life, one man may see the evil of drinking, 
another the harm of horse-racing, another the danger attendant on 
early marriage, a fourth the exceeding inconvenience as well as hazard 
of the heroic highwayman's life— which a certain Ainsworth, in 
company with a certain Cruikshank, has represented as so poetic 
and brilliant, so prodigal of delightful adventure, so adorned with 
champagne, gold-lace, and brocade. 



CAPTAIN FREENY. 155 

And the best part of worthy Freeny's tale is the noble naivete 
and simphcity of the hero as he recounts his own adventures, and 
the utter unconsciousness that he is narrating anything wonderful. 
It is the way of all great men, who recite their great actions modestly, 
and as if they were matters of course ; as indeed to them they are. A 
common tyro, having perpetrated a great deed, would be amazed and 
flurried at his own action ; whereas I make no doubt the Duke of 
Wellington, after a great victory, took his tea and went to bed just as 
quietly as he would after a dull debate in the House of Lords. And 
so with Freeny, — his great and charming characteristic is grave 
simplicity : he does his work ; he knows his danger as well as 
another ; but he goes through his fearful duty quite quietly and easily, 
and not with the least air of bravado, or the smallest notion that he is 
doing anything uncommon. 

It is related of Carter, the Lion-King, that when he was a boy, 
and exceedingly fond of gingerbread-nuts, a relation gave him a 
parcel of those delicious cakes, which the child put in his pocket 
just as he was called on to go into a cage with a very large and 
roaring lion. He had to put his head into the forest-monarch's jaws, 
and leave it there for a considerable time, to the delight of thousands : 
as is even now the case ; and the interest was so much the greater, 
as the child was exceedingly innocent, rosy-cheeked, and pretty. To 
have seen that little flaxen head bitten off by the lion would have 
been a far more pathetic spectacle than that of the decapitation of 
some grey-bearded old unromantic keeper, who had served out raw 
meat and stirred up the animals with a pole any time these twenty 
years : and the interest rose in consequence. 

While the little darling's head was thus enjawed, what was the 
astonishment of everybody to see him put his hand into his little 
pocket, take out a paper — from the paper a gingerbread-nut — pop 
that gingerbread-nut into the lion's mouth, then into his own, and so 
finish at least two-pennyworth of nuts ! 

The excitement was delirious : the ladies, when he came out of 
chancery, were for doing what the lion had not done, and eating him 
up — with kisses. And the only remark the young hero made was, 
" Uncle, them nuts wasn't so crisp as them I had t'other day." He 
never thought of the danger, — he only thought of the nuts. 

Thus it is with Freeny. It is fine to mark his bravery, and to 
see how he cracks his simple philosophic nuts in the jaws of 
innumerable lions. 

At the commencement of the last century, honest Freeny's father 



156 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

was house-steward in the family of Joseph Robbins, Esq., of Bally- 
duff; and, marrying Alice Phelan, a maid-servant in the same family, 
had issue James, the celebrated Irish hero. At a proper age James 
was put to school ; but being a nimble, active lad, and his father's 
mistress taking a fancy to him, he was presently brought to Ballyduff, 
where she had a private tutor to instruct him during the time which 
he could spare from his professional duty, which was that of pantry- 
boy in Mr. Robbins's establishment. At an early age he began to 
neglect his duty ; and although his father, at the excellent Mrs. 
Robbins's suggestion, corrected him very severely, the bent of his 
genius was not to be warped by the rod, and he attended " all the 
little country dances, diversions and meetings, and became what is 
called a good dancer ; his own natural inclinations hurrying him" (as 
he finely says) " into the contrary diversions." 

He was scarce twenty years old when he married (a frightful 
proof of the wicked recklessness of his former courses), and set up 
in trade in Waterford ; where, however, matters went so ill with him, 
that he was speedily without money, and 50/. in debt. He had, he 
says, not any way of paying the debt, except by selling his furniture 
or his riding-7nare, to both of which measures he was averse : for 
where is the gentleman in Ireland that can do without a horse to 
ride ? Mr. Freeny and his riding-mare became soon famous, inso- 
much that a thief in gaol warned the magistrates of Kilkenny to 
beware of a one-eyed man with a 7nare. 

These unhappy circumstances sent him on the highway to seek 
a maintenance, and his first exploit was to rob a gentleman of fifty 
pounds ; then he attacked another, against whom he " had a secret 
disgust, because this gentleman had prevented his former master from 
giving him a suit of clothes ! '' 

Urged by a noble resentment against this gentleman, Mr. Freeny, 
in company with a friend by the name of Reddy, robbed the gentle- 
man's house, taking therein 70/. in money, which was honourably 
divided among the captors. 

" We then," continues Mr. Freeny, " quitted the house with the 
booty, and came to Thomastown ; but not knowing how to dispose 
of the plate, left it with Reddy, who said he had a friend from whom 
he would get cash for it. In some time afterwards I asked him for 
the dividend of the cash he got for the plate, but all the satisfaction 
he gave me was, that it was lost, which occasioned me to have my 
o'W7i opinion ofhi?nP 

Mr. Freeny then robbed Sir William Fownes' servant of 14/., in 



A NIGHT WITH FREENY. 



157 



such an artful manner that everybody believed the servant had himself 
secreted the money ; and no doubt the rascal was turned adrift, and 
starved in consequence— a truly comic incident, and one that could 
be used, so as to provoke a great deal of laughter, in an historical 
work of which our champion should be the hero. 

The next enterprise of importance is that against the house of 
Colonel Palliser, which Freeny thus picturesquely describes. Coming 
with one of his spies close up to the house, Mr. Freeny watched the 
Colonel lighted to bed by a servant ; and thus, as he cleverly says, 
could judge " of the room the Colonel lay in." 

" Some time afterwards," says Freeny, " I observed a light upstairs, 
by which I judged the servants were going to bed, and soon after 
observed that the candles were all quenched, by which I assured 
myself they were all gone to bed. I then came back to where the 
men were, and appointed Bulger, Motley, and Commons to go in 
along with me ; but Commons answered that he never had been in 
any house before where there were arms : upon which I asked the 
coward what business he had there, and swore I would as soon shoot 
him as look at him, and at the same time cocked a pistol to his 
breast ; but the rest of the men prevailed upon me to leave him at 
the back of the house, where he might run away when he thought 
proper. 

" I then asked Grace where did he choose to be posted : he 
answered * that he would go where I pleased to order him,' for which 
I thanked him. We then immediately came up to the house, lighted 
our candles, put Houlahan at the back of the house to prevent any 
person from coming out that way, and placed Hacket on my mare, 
well armed, at the front ; and I then broke one of the windows with a 
sledge, whereupon Bulger, Motley, Grace, and I got in ; upon which I 
ordered Motley and Grace to go upstairs, and Bulger and I would 
stay below, where we thought the greatest danger would be ; but I 
immediately, upon second consideration, for fear Motley or Grace 
should be daunted, desired Bulger to go up with them, and when he 
had fixed matters above, to come down, as I judged the Colonel lay 
below. I then went to the room where the Colonel was, and burst 
open the door; upon which he said, 'Odds-wounds! who's there .^' 
to which I answered, ' A friend, sir ; ' upon which he said, ' You lie ! 
by G-d, you are no friend of mine ! ' I then said that I was, and his 
relation also, and that if he viewed me close he would know me, and 
begged of him not to be angry : upon which I immediately seized a 
bullet-gun and case of pistols, which I observed hanging up in his 



T58 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

room. I then quitted his room, and walked round the lower part of 
the house, thinking to meet some of the servants, whom I thought 
would strive to make their escape from the men who were above, and 
meeting none of them, I immediately returned to the Colonel's room ; 
where I no sooner entered than he desired me to go out for a villain, 
and asked why I bred such disturbance in his house at that time of 
night. At the same time I snatched his breeches from under his 
head, wherein I got a small purse of gold, and said that abuse was not 
fit treatment for me who was his relation, and that it would hinder me 
of calling to see him again. I then demanded the key of his desk 
which stood in his room ; he answered he had no key ; upon which I 
said I had a very good key ; at the same time giving it a stroke with 
the sledge, which burst it open, wherein I got a purse of ninety 
guineas, a four-pound piece, two moidores, some small gold, and a 
large glove with twenty-eight guineas in silver. 

" By this time Bulger and Motley came downstairs to me, after 
rifling the house above. We then observed a closet inside his room, 
which we soon entered, and got therein a basket wherein there was 
plate to the value of three hundred pounds." 

And so they took leave of Colonel Palliser, and rode away with 
their earnings. 

The story, as here narrated, has that simplicity which is beyond 
the reach of all except the very highest art ; and it is not high 
art certainly which Mr. Freeny can be said to possess, but a noble 
nature rather, which leads him thus grandly to describe scenes 
wherein he acted a great part. With what a gallant determination 
does he inform the coward Commons that he would shoot him ^^as 
soon as look at him;'" and how dreadful he must have looked (with 
his one eye) as he uttered that sentiment ! But he left him, he says 
with a grim humour, at the back of the house, "where he might run 
away when he thought proper." The Duke of WelHngton must have 
read Mr, Freeny's history in his youth (his Grace's birthplace is 
not far from the scene of the other gallant Irishman's exploit), for 
the Duke acted in precisely a similar way by a Belgian Colonel at 
Waterloo. 

It must be painful to great and successful commanders to think 
how their gallant comrades and lieutenants, partners of their toil, their 
feelings, and their fame, are separated from them by time, by death, 
by estrangement — nay, sometimes by treason. Commons is off, disap- 
pearing noiseless into the deep night, whilst his comrades perform the 
.vork of danger ; and Bulger, — Bulger, who in the above scene acts 



A NIGHT WITH FREE AY. 159 

so gallant a part, and in whom Mr. Freeny places so much confidence 
— actually went away to England, carrying off " some plate, some 
shirts, a gold watch, and a diamond ring" of the Captain's ; and, though 
he returned to his native tountry, the valuables did not return with 
him, on which the Captain swore he would blow his brains out. As for 
poor Grace, he was hanged, much to his leader's sorrow, who says of 
him that he was " the faithfullest of his spies." Motley was sent to 
Naas gaol for the very robbery : and though Captain Freeny does not 
mention his ultimate fate, 'tis probable he was hanged too. Indeed, 
the warrior's life is a hard one, and over misfortunes like these the 
feeling heart cannot but sigh. 

But, putting out of the question the conduct and fate of the Cap- 
tain's associates, let us look to his own behaviour as a leader. It is 
impossible not to admire his serenity, his dexterity, that dashing im- 
petuosity in the moment of action and that aquiline coiip-d^oeil which 
belong to but few generals. He it is who leads the assault, smashing 
in the window with a sledge ; he bursts open the Colonel's door, who 
says (naturally enough), " Odds-wounds ! who's there?" "A friend, 
sir," says Freeny. '' You lie ! by G-d, you are no friend of mine ! '* 
roars the military blasphemer. " I then said that I was, and his relatio7i 
also, and that if he viewed me close he would know me, and begged of 
him not to be angry : 7tpo?i ivJiich I immediately seized a brace of 
pistols which I observed hanging up in his room." That is something 
like presence of mind : none of ^^our brutal braggadocio work, but 
neat, wary — nay, sportive bearing in the face of danger. And again, 
on the second visit to the Colonel's room, when the latter bids him 
" go out for a villain, and not breed a disturbance," what reply makes 
Freeny ? " At the same time I snatched his breeches from under his 
head." A common man would never have thought of looking for them 
in such a place at all. The difficulty about the key he resolves in quite 
an Alexandrian manner ; and, from the specimen we already have had 
of the Colonel's style of speaking, we may fancy how ferociously he lay 
in bed and swore, after Captain Freeny and his friends had disappeared 
with the ninety guineas, the moidores, the four-pound piece, and the 
glove with twenty-eight guineas in silver. 

As for the plate, he hid it in a wood ; and then, being out of danger, 
he sat down and paid everybody his deserts. By the way, what a 
strange difference of opinion is there about a man's deserts / Here 
sits Captain Freeny with a company of gentlemen, and awards them a 
handsome sum of money for an action which other people would have 
remunerated with a halter. Which are right ? perhaps both : but at 



i6o THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

any rate it will be admitted that the Captain takes the humane view of 
the question. 

The greatest enemy Captain Freeny had was Counsellor Robbins, 
a son of his old patron, and one of the most determined thief-pursuers 
the country ever knew. But though he was untiring in his efforts to 
capture (and of course to hang) Mr. Freeny, and though the latter 
was strongly urged by his friends to blow the Counsellor's brains out : 
yet, to his immortal honour be it said, he refused that temptation, 
agreeable as it was, declaring that he had eaten too much of that 
family's bread ever to take the life of one of them, and being besides 
quite aware that the Counsellor was only acting against him in a public 
capacity. He respected him, in fact, like an honourable though terrible 
adversary. 

How deep a stratagem-inventor the Counsellor was, may be 
gathered from the following narration of one of his plans : — 

" Counsellor Robbins finding his brother had not got intelligence 
that was sufficient to carry any reasonable foundation for apprehending 
us, walked out as if merely for exercise, till he met with a person whom 
he thought he could confide in, and desired the person to meet him at 
a private place appointed for that purpose, which they did ; and he 
told that person he had a very good opinion of him, from the character 
received from his father of him, and from his own knowledge of him, 
and hoped that the person would then show him that such opinion was 
not ill founded. The person assuring the Counsellor he would do all 
in his power to serve and oblige him, the Counsellor told him how 
greatly he was concerned to hear the scandalous character that part of 
the country (which had formerly been an honest one) had lately fallen 
into ; that it was said that a gang of robbers who disturbed the country 
lived thereabouts. The person told him he was afraid what he said 
was too true ; and, on being asked whom he suspected, he named the 
same four persons Mr. Robbins had, but said he dare not, for fear of 
being murdered, be too inquisitive, and therefore could not say any- 
thing material. The Counsellor asked him if he knew where there was 
any private ale to be sold; and he said Moll Burke, who lived near the 
end of Mr. Robbins's avenue, had a barrel or half a barrel. The 
Counsellor then gave the person a moidore, and desired him to go to 
Thomastown and buy two or three gallons of whisky, and bring it to 
Moll Burke's, and invite as many as he suspected to be either princi- 
pals or accessories to take a drink, and make them drink very heartily, 
and when he found they were fuddled, and not sooner, to tell some of 
the hastiest that some other had said some bad things of them, so as 



THE COUNSELLORS STRATAGEM. i6i 

to provoke them to abuse and quarrel with each other ; and then, pro- 
bably, in their liquor and passion, they might make some discoveries 
of each other, as may enable the Counsellor to get some one of the 
gang to discover and accuse the rest. 

" The person accordingly got the whisky and invited a good many 
to drink ; but the Counsellor being then at his brother's, a few only 
went to Moll Burke's, the rest being afraid to venture while the Coun- 
sellor was in the neighbourhood : among those who met there was one 
[Moll Brophy, the wife of Mr. Robbins's smith, and one Edmund or 
Edward Stapleton, otherwise Gaul, who lived thereabouts ; and when 
they had drank plentifully, the Counsellor's spy told Moll Brophy that 
Gaul had said she had gone astray with some persons or other : she 
then abused Gaul, and told him he was one of Freeny's accomplices, 
for that he, Gaul, had told her he had seen Colonel PaUiser's watch 
with Freeny, and that Freeny had told him, Gaul, that John Welsh 
and the two Graces had been with him at the robbery. 

" The company on their quarrel broke up, and the next morning 
the spy met the Counsellor at the place appointed, at a distance from 
Mr. Robbins's house, to prevent suspicion, and there told the Coun- 
sellor what intelligence he had got. The Counsellor not being then a 
justice of the peace, got his brother to send for Moll Brophy to be 
examined; but when she came, she refused to be sworn or to give any 
evidence, and thereupon the Counsellor had her tied and put on a car 
in order to be carried to gaol on a mittimus from Mr. Robbins, for 
refusing to give evidence on behalf of the Crown. When she found 
she would really be sent to gaol, she submitted to be sworn, and the 
Counsellor drew from her what she had said the night before, and 
something further, and desired her not to tell anybody what she had 
sworn." 

But if the Counsellor was acute, were there not others as clever as 
he ? For when, in consequence of the information of Mrs. Brophy, 
some gentlemen who had been engaged in the burglarious enterprises 
in which Mr. Freeny obtained so much honour were seized and tried, 
Freeny came forward with the best of arguments in their favour. 
Indeed, it is fine to see these two great spirits matched one against 
the other, — the Counsellor, with all the regular force of the country to 
back him,— the Highway General, with but the wild resources of his 
gallant genius, and with cunning and bravery for his chief allies. 

" I lay by for a considerable time after, and concluded within my- 
self to do no more mischief till after the assizes, when I would hear 
how it went with the men who were then in confinement. Some time 



i62 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

before the assizes Counsellor Robbins came to Ballyduff, and told his 
brother that he believed Anderson and Welsh were guilty, and also 
said he would endeavour to have them both hanged : of which I was 
informed. 

'' Soon after, I went to the house of one George Roberts, who 
asked me if I had any regard for those fellows who were then confined 
(meaning Anderson and Welsh). I told him I had a regard for one of 
them : upon which he said he had a friend who was a man of power 
and interest,— that he would save either of them, provided I would 
give him five guineas. I told him I would give him ten, and the first 
gold watch I could get ; whereupon he 'said that it was of no use to 
speak to his friend without the money or value, for that he was a mer- 
cenary man : on which I told Roberts I had not so much money at 
that time, but that I would give him my watch as a pledge to give his 
friend. I then gave him my watch, and desired him to engage that I 
would pay the money which I promised to pay, or give value for it in 
plate, in two or three nights after ; upon which he engaged that his 
friend would act the needful. Then we appointed a night to meet, and 
we accordingly met ; and Roberts told me that his friend agreed to 
save Anderson and Welsh from the gallows ; whereupon I gave him a 
plate tankard, value io/.,a large ladle, value 4/., with some tablespoons. 
The assizes of Kilkenny, in spring, 1748, coming on soon after, Coun- 
sellor Robbins had John transmitted from Naas to Kilkenny, in order 
to give evidence against Anderson and Welsh ; and they were tried 
for Mrs. ^Mounford's robbery, on the evidence of John Welsh and 
others. The physic working well, six of the jury were for finding them 
guilty, and six more for acquitting them ; and the other six finding 
them peremptory, and that they were resolved to starve the others into 
compliance, as they say they may do by law, were for their own sakes 
obliged to comply with them, and they were acquitted. On which 
Counsellor Robbins began to smoke the affair, and suspect the opera- 
tion of gold dust, which was well applied for my comrades, and there- 
upon left the court in a rage, and swore he would for ever quit the 
country, since he found people were not satisfied with protecting and 
saving the rogues they had under themselves, but must also show that 
they could and would oblige others to have rogues under them vv-hether 
they would or no." 

Here Counsellor Robbins certainly loses that greatness which has - 
distinguished him in his former attack on Freeny ; the Counsellor is 
defeated and loses his temper. Like Napoleon, he is unequal to 
reverses : in adverse fortune his presence of mind deserts him. 



A JURY FOR EVER! 163 

But what call had he tc be in a passion at all ? It may be very 
well for a man to be in a rage because he is disappointed of his pre}- : 
so is the hawk, when the dove escapes, in a rage ; but let us reflect 
that, had Counsellor Robbins had his will, two honest fellows would 
have been hanged ; and so let us be heartily thankful that he was 
disappointed, and that these men were acquitted by a jury of their 
countrymen. What right had the Counsellor, forsooth, to interfere 
with their verdict? Not against Irish juries at least does the old 
satire apply, " And culprits hang that jurymen may dine ? " At 
Kilkenny, on the contrary, the jurymen starve in order that the culprits 
might be saved— a noble and humane act of self-denial. 

In another case, stern justice, and the law of self-preservation, 
compelled ]\Ir. Freeny to take a very different course with respect 
to one of his ex-associates. In the former instance we have seen 
him pawning his watch, giving up tankard, tablespoons — all, for 
his suffering friends ; here we have his method of dealing with 
traitors. 

One of his friends, by the name of Dooling, was taken prisoner, 
and condemned to be hanged, which gave Mr. Freeny, he says, '' a 
great shock;" but presently this Dooling's fears were worked upon by 
some traitors within the gaol, and — 

"He then consented to discover; but I had a friend in gaol at the 
same time, one Patrick Healy, who daily insinuated to him that it was 
of no use or advantage to him to discover anything, as he received 
sentence of death; and that, after he had made a discovery, they 
would leave him as he was, without troubling themselves about a 
reprieve. But notwithstanding, he told the gentlemen that there was 
a man blind of an eye who had a bay-mare, that lived at the other side 
of Thomastown bridge, whom he assured them would be very trouble- 
some in that neighbourhood after his death. When Healy discovered 
what he told the gentlemen, he one night took an opportunity and 
made Dooling fuddled, and prevailed upon him to take his oath he 
never would give the least, hint about me anymore. He also told 
him the penalty that attended infringing upon his oath — but more 
especially as he was at that time near his end— which had the desired 
effect ; for he never mentioned my name, nor even anything relative 
to me," and so went out of the world repenting of his meditated 
treason. 

What further exploits Mr. Freeny performed may be learned by 
the curious in his history : they are all, it need scarcely be said, of a 
similar nature to that noble action which has already been described. 



i64 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

His escapes from his enemies were marvellous ; his courage in facing 
them equally great. He is attacked by whole " armies," through 
which he makes his way; wounded, he lies in the woods for days 
together with three bullets in his leg, and in this condition manages 
to escape several " armies " that have been marched against him. 
He is supposed to be dead, or travelling on the continent, and 
suddenly makes his appearance in his old haunts, advertising his 
arrival by robbing ten men on the highway in a single day. And go 
terrible is his courage, or so popular his manners, that he describes 
scores of labourers looking on while his exploits were performed, and 
not affording the least aid to the roadside traveller whom he van- 
quished. 

But numbers always prevail in the end; what could Leonidas 
himself do against an army.'' The gallant band of brothers led by 
Freeny were so pursued by the indefatigable Robbins and his myr- 
midons, that there was no hope left for them, and the Captain saw 
^hat he must succumb. 

He reasoned, however, with himself (with his usual keen logic), 
and said : " My men must fall, — the world is too strong for us, and 
to<-day, or to-morrow — it matters scarcely when — they must yield. 
They will be hanged for a certainty, and thus will disappear the 
noblest company of knights the world has ever seen. 

" But as they will certainly be hanged, and no power of mine can 
save them, is it necessary that I should follow them too to the tree? 
and will James Bulger's fate be a whit more agreeable to him, because 
James Freeny dangles at nis side? To suppose so, would be to admit 
that he was actuated by a savage feeling of revenge, which I know 
belongs not to his generous nature." 

In a word, Mr. Freeny resolved to turn king's evidence; for though 
he swore (in a communication with the implacable Robbins) that he 
would rather die than betray Bulger, yet when the Counsellor stated 
that he must then die, Freeny says, " I promised to submit, and 
understood that Bidgcr should be setJ'' 

Accordingly some days afterwards (although the Captain carefully 
avoids mentioning that he had met his friend with any such intentions 
as those indicated m the last paragraph) he and Mr. Bulger came 
together : and, strangely enough, it was agreed that the one was to 
sleep while tlie other kept watch ; and, while thus employed, the 
enemy came upon them. But let Freeny describe for himself the last 
passages of his history : 

" We then went to Welsh's house, with a view not to make any 



FREENY'S LAST EXPLOITS. 165 

delay there ; but, taking a glass extraordinary after supper, Bulger fell 
asleep. Welsh, in the meantime, told me his house was the safest 
place I could get in that neighbourhood, and while I remained there I 
would be very safe, provided that no person knew of my coming there 
(I had not acquainted him that Breen knew of my coming that way). 
I told Welsh that, as Bulger was asleep, I would not go to bed till 
morning : upon which Welsh and I stayed up all night, and in the 
morning Welsh said that he and his wife had a call to Callen, it being 
market-day. About nine o'clock I went and awoke Bulger, desiring 
him to get up and guard me whilst I slept, as I guarded him all night ; 
he said he would, and then I went to bed charging him to watch close, 
for fear we should be surprised. I put my blunderbuss and two cases 
of pistols under my head, and soon fell fast asleep. In two hours after 
the servant-girl of the house, seeing an enemy coming into the yard, 
ran up to the room where we were, and said that there were an 
hundred men coming into the yard ; upon which Bulger immediately 
awoke me, and, taking up my blunderbuss, he fired a shot towards the 
door, which wounded Mr. Burgess, one of the sheriffs of Kilkenny, of 
which wound he died. They concluded to set the house on fire about 
us, which they accordingly did ; upon which I took my fusee in one 
hand, and a pistol in the other, and Bulger did the like, and as we 
came out of the door, we fired on both sides, imagining it to be the 
best method of dispersing the enemy, who were on both sides of the 
door. We got through them, but they fired after us, and as Bulger 
was leaping over a ditch he received a shot in the small of the leg, 
which rendered him incapable of running; but, getting into a field, 
where I had the ditch between me and the enemy, I still walked 
slowly with Bulger, till I thought the enemy were within shot of the 
ditch, and then wheeled back to the ditch and presented my fusee at 
them. They all drew back and went for their horses to ride round, as 
the field was wide and open, and without cover except the ditch. 
When I discovered their intention I stood in the middle of the field, 
and one of the gentlemen's servants (there were fourteen in number) 
rode foremost towards me ; upon which I told the son of a coward I 
believed he had no more than five pounds a year from his master, and 
that I would put him in such a condition that his master would not 
maintain him afterwards. To which he answered that he had no view 
of doing us any harm, but that he was commanded by his master to 
ride so near us ; and then immediately rode back to the enemy, who 
were coming towards him. They rode almost within shot of us, and 
I observed they intended to surround us in the field, and prevent me 



i66 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

from having any recourse to the ditch again. Bulger was at this time 
so bad with the wound, that he could not go one step without leaning 
on my shoulder. At length, seeing the enemy coming within shot of 
me, I laid down my fusee and stripped off my coat and waistcoat, and 
running towards them, cried out, ' You sons of cowards, come on, and 
I will blow your brains out ! ' On which they returned back, and then 
I walked easy to the place where I left my clothes, and put them on, 
and Bulger and I walked leisurely some distance further. The enemy 
came a second time, and I occasioned them to draw back as before, 
and then we walked to Lord Dysart's deer-park wall. I got up the 
wall and helped Bulger up. The enemy, who still pursued us, though 
not within shot, seeing us on the wall, one of them fired a random 
shot at us to no purpose. We got safe over the wall, and went from 
thence into my Lord Dysart's wood, where Bulger said he would 
remain, thinking it a safe place; but I told him he would be safer 
anywhere else, for the army of Kilkenny and Callen would be soon 
about the wood, and that he would be taken if he stayed there. 
Besides, as I was very averse to betraying him at all, I could not bear 
the thoughts of his being taken in my company by any party but 
Lord Carrick's. I then brought him about half a mile beyond the 
wood, and left him there in a brake of briars, and looking towards the 
wood I saw it surrounded by the army. There was a cabin near that 
place where I fixed Bulger : he said he would go to it at night, and 
he would send for some of his friends to take care of him. It was 
then almost two o'clock, and we were four hours going to that place, 
which was about" two miles from Welsh's house. Imagining that 
there were spies fixed on all the fords and by-roads between that 
place and the mountain^ I went towards the bounds of the county 
Tipperary, where I arrived about nightfall, and going to a cabin, I 
asked whether there was any drink sold near that place .? The man 
of the house said there was not; and as I was very much fatigued, I 
sat down, and there refreshed myself with what the cabin afforded. 
I then begged of the man to sell me a pair of his brogues and 
stockings, as I was then barefooted, which he accordingly did. I 
quitted the house, went through Kinsheenah and Poulacoppal, and 
having so many thorns in my feet, I was obliged to go barefooted, and 
went to Sleedelagh, and through the mountains, till I came within 
four miles of VVaterford, and going into a cabin, the man of the house 
took eighteen thorns out of the soles of my feet, and I remained in 
and about that place for some time after. 

*' In the meantime a friend of mine was told that it was impossible 



I 



ALL HANGED! 167 

for me to escape death, for Bulger had turned against me, and that 
his friends and Stack were resolved upon my life; but the person who 
told my friend so, also said, that if my friend would set Bulger and 
Breen, I might get a pardon through the Earl of Carrick's means and 
Counsellor Robbins's interest. My friend said that he was sure I 
would not consent to such a thing, but the best way was to do it 
unknown to me; and my friend accordingly set Bulger, who was taken 
by the Earl of Carrick and his party, and Mr. Fitzgerald, and six of 
Counsellor Robbins's soldiers, and committed to Kilkenny gaol. He 
was three days in gaol before I heard he was taken, being at that time 
twenty miles distant from the neighbourhood ; nor did I hear from 
him or see him since I left him near Lord Dysart's wood, //// a friend 
came and told me it was to preserve my life and to fulfil my articles 

that Bulger was taken." 

***** 

" Finding I was suspected, I withdrew to a neighbouring wood and 
concealed myself there till night, and then went to Ballyduff to Mr. 
Fitzgerald and surrendered myself to him, till I could write to my 
Lord Carrick ; which I did immediately, and gave him an account of 
what I escaped, or that I would have gone to Ballylynch and 
surrendered myself there to him, and begged his lordship to send a 
guard for me to conduct me to his house — which he did, and I 
remained there for a few days. 

" He then sent me to Kilkenny gaol ; and at the summer assizes 
following, James Bulger, Patrick Hacket otherwise Bristeen, Martin 
Millea, John Stack, Felix Donelly, Edmund Kenny, and James 
Larrasy were tried, convicted, and executed ; and at spring assizes 
following, George Roberts was tried for receiving Colonel Pallisers 
gold watch knowing it to be stolen, but was acquitted on account of 
exceptions taken to my pardon, which prevented my giving evidence. 
At the following assizes, when I had got a new pardon, Roberts was 
again tried for receiving the tankard, ladle, and silver-spoons from me 
knowing them to be stolen, and was convicted and executed. At the 
same assizes, John Reddy, my instructor, and Martin Millea, were 
also tried, convicted, and executed." 

And so they were all hanged : James Bulger, Patrick Hacket or 
Bristeen, Martin Millea, John Stack and Felix Donelly, and Edmund 
Kenny and James Larrasy, with Roberts who received the Colonel's 
watch, the tankard, ladle, and the silver-spoons, were all convicted and 
executed. Their names drop naturally into blank verse. It is hard 
upon poor George Roberts too : for the watch he received was no 



i68 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

doubt in the very inexpressibles which the Captain himself took from 
the Colonel's head. 

As for the Captain himself, he says that, on going out of gaol, 
Counsellor Robbins and Lord Carrick proposed a subscription for him 
— in which, strangely, the gentlemen of the county would not join, 
and so that scheme carne to nothing; and so he published his memoirs 
in order to get himself a little money. Many a man has taken up the 
pen under similar circumstances of necessity. 

But what became of Captain Freeny afterwards, does not appear. 
Was he an honest man ever after .^ Was he hanged for subsequent 
misdemeanours ? It matters little to him now ; though, perhaps, 
one cannot help feeling a little wish that the latter fate may have 
befallen him. 

Whatever his death was, however, the history of his life has been 
one of the most popular books ever known in this country. It formed 
the class-book in those rustic universities which are now rapidly dis- 
appearing from among the hedges of Ireland. And lest any English 
reader should, on account of its lowness, quarrel with the introduction 
here of this strange picture of wild courage and daring, let him be 
reconciled by the moral at the end, which, in the persons of Bulger 
and the rest, hangs at the beam before Kilkenny gaol. 



GALIVAV. 



169 



CHAPTER XVI. 

MORE RAIN IN GALWAY— A WALK THERE— AND THE SECOND 
G \LWAY NIGHT'S ENTERTAINMENT. 

EVEN hills lias Rome, seven 
mouths has Nilus' stream, 
Around the Pole seven burning 

planets gleam. 
Twice equal these is Gahvay, 

Connaught's Rome : 
Twice seven illustrious tribes heie 

find their home.* 
Twice seven fair towers the city's 

ramparts gua,rd : 
P^ach house within is l)uilt of 

marble hard. 
With lofty turret flanked, twice 

seven the gates, 
Through twice seven bridges 
j^cr'-v' '/''^-^r^^fc^i^ "^ ^«2^^=- water permeates. 
""'^^V vl l2^^^©I^=='^^'^^ ' ^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^ church are twice 

seven altars raised, 
At each a holy saint and patron's 
~~' ~ praised. 

Twice seven the convents dedicate to heaven, — 
Seven for the female sex— for godly fathers seven,"! 

Having read in Hardiman's History the quaint inscription in Irish 
Latin, of which the above lines are a version, and looked admiringly 

* By the help of an Alexandrine, the names of these famous families may 
also be accommodated to verse. 

"Athey, Blake. Bodkin, Browne, Deane, Dorsey, Frinche, 
Joyce, Morech, Skereth, Fonte, Kirowan, Martin, Lynche." 

t If the rude old verses are not very i-emarkable in quality, mqtianfify they 
are still more deficient, and take some dire liberties with the laws laid down in 
the Gradus and the Grammar : 




Septem ornant montes Romam, septeni cstia Nilum, 
Tot riitilis stellis splendet in axe Poius. 



173 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

at the old plans of Gahvay which are to be found in the same work, 
I was in hopes to have seen in the town some considerable remains 
of its former splendour, in spite of a warning to the contrary which the 
learned historiographer gives. 

The old city certainly has some relics of its former stateliness ; 
and, indeed, is the only town in Ireland I have seen, where an anti- 
quary can find much subject for study, or a lover of the picturesque 
an occasion for using his pencil. It is a wild, fierce, and most 
original old town. Joyce's Castle in one of the principal streets, a 
huge square grey tower, with many carvings and ornaments, is a 
gallant relic of its old days of prosperity, and gives one an awful idea 
of the tenements which the other families inhabited, and which are 
designed in the interesting plate which Mr. Hardiman gives in his 
work. The Collegiate Church, too, is still extant, without its fourteen 
altars, and looks to be something between a church and a castle, and 
as if it should be served by Templars with sword and helmet in 
place of mitre and crosier. The old houses in the Main Street are 
like forcresses : |^e windows look into a court within ; there is but a 
small low door, and a few grim windows peering suspiciously into the 
street. 

Then there is Lombard Street, otherwise called Deadman's Lane, 
with a raw-head and cross-bones and a "memento mori " over the 
door where the dreadful tragedy of the Lynches was acted in 1493. 
If Galway is the Rome of Connaught, James Lynch Fitzstephen, the 
Mayor, may be considered as the Lucius Junius Brutus thereof. 
Lynch had a son who went to Spain as master of one of his father's 
ships, and being of an extravagant, wild turn, there contracted debts, 
and drew bills, and alarmed his father's correspondent, who sent a 
clerk and nephew of his own back in young Lynch's ship to Galway 
to settle accounts. On the fifteenth day, young Lynch threw the 
Spaniard overboard. Coming back to his own country, he reformed 
his life a little, and was on the point of marrying one of the Blakes, 
Burkes, Bodkins, or others, when a ?eaman who had sailed with him, 

Galvia, Polo Niloque bis cequas. Roma Conachta;, 

Bis septem illustres has colit ilia tribus. 
Bis urbis septem defendunt moenia turres, 

Intus et en duro est marmore quseque domus. 
Bis septem portae sunt, castra et culmina circi;m, 

Per totidem pontiam permeat unda vias. 
Principe bis teptem fulgent altaria templo, 

Qusevis patronse est ara dicata suo, 
Et septem sacrata Deo crenobia, patrum 

Foeminei et sexus, tot pia tecta tenet." 



THE MAYOR OF GALIVAY 



i/i 



being on the point of death, confessed the murder in which he had 
been a participator. 

Hereon the father, who Avas chief magistrate of the town, tried 
his son, and sentenced him to death ; and when the clan Lynch rose 
in a body to rescue the young man, and avert such a disgrace from 
their family, it is said that Fitzstephen Lynch hanged the culprit with 
his own hand. A tragedy called " The Warden of Galway" has been 
written on the subject, and was acted a few nights before my arrival. 

The waters of Lough Corrib, which " permeate " under the bridges 
of the town, go rushing and roaring to the sea with a noise and eager- 
ness only known in Galway ; and along the banks you see all sorts of 




strange figures washing all sorts of wonderful rags, with red petticoats 
and redder shanks standing in the stream. Pigs are in every street : 
the whole town shrieks with them. There are numbers of idlers on 
the bridges, thousands in the streets, humming and swarming in and 
out of dark old ruinous houses ; congregated round numberless apple- 
stalls, nail-stalls, bottle-stalls, pigsfoot-stalls ; in queer old shops, that 
look to be two centuries old ; loitering about warehouses, ruined or 
not ; looking at the washerwomen washing in the river, or at the fish- 
donkeys, or at the potato-stalls, or at a vessel coming into the quay, or 
at the boats putting out to sea. 

That boat at the quay, by the little old gate, is bound for Arran- 
more ; and one next to it has a freight of passengers for the cliffs of 
Mohir on the Clare coast ; and as the sketch is taken, a hundred 



172 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



of people have stopped in the street to look on, and are buzzing 
behind in Irish, telling the little boys in that language— who will per- 
sist in placing themselves exactly in the front of the designer— to get out 
of his way ; which they do for some time ; but at length curiosity is 
so intense that you are entirely hemmed in and the view rendered 
quite invisible. A sailor's wife comes up — who speaks English— with 
a very wistful face, and begins to hint that them black pictures are 
very bad likenesses, and very dear too for a poor woman, and hov/ 
much would a painted one cost does his honour think ? And she has 
her husband that is going to sea to the West Indies to-morrow, and 
she'd give anything to have a picture of him. So I made bold to offer 
to take his likeness for nothing. But he never came, except one day 
at dinner, and not at all on the next day, though I stayed on purpose 
to accommodate him. It is true that it was pouring with rain ; and as 
English waterproof coats are not waterproof in Ireland^ the traveller 
who has but one coat must of necessity respect it, and had better stay 
where he is, unless he prefers to go to bed while he has his clothes 
dried at the next stage. 

The houses in the fashionable street where the club-house stands 
(a strong building, with an agreeable Old Bailey look,) have the 
appearance of so many little Newgates. The Catholic chapels are 
numerous, unfinished, and ugly. Great warehouses and mills rise up 
by the stream, or in the midst of unfinished streets here and there ; 
and handsome convents with their gardens, justice-houses, barracks, 
and hospitals adorn the large, poor, bustling, rough-and-ready-looking 
town. A man who sells hunting-whips, gunpowder, guns, fishing- 
tackle, and brass and iron ware, has a few books on his counter ; and 
a lady in a by-street, who carries on the profession of a milliner, 
ekes out her stock in a similar way. But there were no regular 






EJSJTEll 




book-shops that I saw, and when it came on to rain I had no resource 
but the hedge-school volumes again. They, like Patrick Spelman's 



GALWAY. 173 

sign (which was faithfully copied in the town), present some very rude 
flowers of poetry and " entertainment ^' of an exceedingly humble sort ; 
but such shelter is not to be despised when no better is to be had : 
nay, possibly its novelty may be piquant to some readers, as an admirer 
of Shakspeare will occasionally condescend to listen to Mr. Punch, 
or an epicure to content himself with a homely dish of beans and 
bacon. 

When Mr. Kilroy's waiter has drawn the window-curtains, brought 
the hot-water for the whisky-negus, a pipe and a "screw" of tobacco, 
and two huge old candlesticks that were plated once, the audience 
may be said to be assembled, and after a little overture performed 
on the pipe, the second night's entertainment begins with the historical 
tragedy of the " Battle of Aughrim." 

Though it has found its way to the West of Ireland, the " Battle of 
Aughrim" is evidently by a Protestant author, a great enemy of popery 
and wooden shoes : both of which principles incarnate in the person 
of St. Ruth, the French General commanding the troops sent by 
Louis XIV. to the aid of James II., meet with a woful downfall at the 
conclusion of the piece. It must have been written in the reign 
of Queen Anne, judging from some loyal compliments which are 
paid to that sovereign in the play ; which is also modelled upon 
"Cato."' 

The "Battle of Aughrim" is written from beginning to end in 
decasyllabic verse of the richest sort ; and introduces us to the chiefs 
of William's and James's armies. On the English side we have Baron 
Ginkell, three Generals, and two Colonels ; on the Irish, Monsieur 
Saint Ruth, two Generals, two Colonels, and an English gentleman 
of fortune, a volunteer, and son of no less a person than Sir Edmund- 
bury Godfrey. 

There are two ladies — Jemima, the Irish Colonel Talbot's 
daughter, in love with Godfrey ; and Lucinda, lady of Colonel Her- 
bert, in love with her lord. And the deep nature of the tragedy 
may be imagined when it is stated that Colonel Talbot is killed, 
Colonel Herbert is killed, Sir Charles Godfrey is killed, and Jemima 
commits suicide, as resolved not to survive her adorer. St. Ruth is 
also killed, and the remaining Irish heroes are taken prisoners or 
run away. Among the supernumeraries there is likewise a dreadful 
slaughter. 

The author, however, though a Protestant is an Irishman (there 
are peculiarities in his pronunciation which belong only to that 
nation), and as far as courage goes, he allows the two parties to be 



174 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

pretty equal. The scene opens with a martial sound of kettle-drums 
and trumpets in the Irish camp, near Athlone. That town is besieged 
by Ginkell, and Monsieur St. Ruth (despising his enemy with a con- 
fidence often fatal to Generals) meditates an attack on the besiegers' 
lines, if, by any chance, the besieged garrison be not in a condition 
to drive them off. After discoursing on the posture of affairs, and 
letting General Sarsfield and Colonel O'Neil know his hearty con- 
tempt of the English and their General, all parties, after protestations 
of patriotism, indulge in hopes of the downfall of William. St. Ruth 
says he will drive the wolves and lions' cubs away. O'Neil declares 
he scorns the revolution, and, like great Cato, smiles at persecution. 
Sarsfield longs for the day " when our Monks and Jesuits shall return, 
and holy incense on our altars burn." When 

^^ Enter a Post. 

" Post. With important news I fi-om Athlone am sent, 
Be pleased to lead me to the General's tent. 

^'Sars. Behold the General there. Your message tell. 

" SL Ruth. Declare your message. Are our friends all well ? 

" Post. Pardon me, sir, the fatal news I bring 
Like vulture's poison every heart shall sting. 
Athlone is lost without your timely aid. 
At six this morning an assault was made, 
When, under shelter of the British cannon, 
Their grenadiers in armour took the Shannon, 
Led by brave Captain Sandys, who with fame 
Plunged to his middle in the rapid stream . 
He led them through, and with undaunted ire 
He gained the bank in spite of all our fire ; 
Being bravely followed by his grenadiers 
Though bullets flew like hail about their ears, 
And by this time they enter uncontrolled. 

" St. Ruth. Dare all ihe force of England be so bold 
T' attempt to storm so brave a town, when I 
With all Hibernia's sons of war am nigh ? 
Return : and if the Britons dare pursue. 
Tell them St. Ruth is near, and that will do. 

' ' Post. Your aid would do much better than your name. 

•* -5"/. Ruth. Bear back this answer, friend, from whence you came, 

[Exit Post."' 

The picture of brave Sandys, " who with fame plunged to his 
middle in the rapid strame," is not a bad image on the part of the 
Post ; and St. Ruth's reply, " Tell them St. Ruth is near, and 



IN A A ARM-CHAIR. 175 

that will do^'' characteristic of the vanity of his nation. But Sars- 
field knows Britons better, and pays a merited compHmcnt to their 
valour : 

" Sars. Send speedy succours and their fate prevent, 
You know not yet what Britons dare attempt. 
I know the Enghsh fortitude is such, 
To boast of nothing, though they hazard much. 
No force on earth their fury can repel, 
Nor woukl they fly from all the devils in hell." 

Another officer arrives : Athlone is really taken, St. Ruth gives orders 
to retreat to Aughrim, and Sarsfield, in a rage, first challenges him, 
and then vows he will quit the army, '■'■ K gleam of horror does my 
vitals da?np" says the Frenchman (in a figure of speech more remark- 
able for vigour than logic) : " I fear Lord Lucan has forsook the 
camp ! " But not so : after a momentary indignation, Sarsfield re- 
turns to his duty, and ere long is reconciled with his vain and 
vacillating chief. 

And now the love-intrigue begins. Godfrey enters, and states 
Sir Charles Godfrey is his lawful name : he is an Englishman, and 
was on his way to join Ginkell's camp, when Jemima's beauty over- 
came him : he asks Colonel Talbot to bestow on him the lady's 
hand. The Colonel consents, and in Act II., on the plain of Aughrim, 
at 5 o'clock in the morning, Jemima enters and proclaims her love. 
The lovers have an interview, which concludes by a mutual con- 
fession of attachment, and Jemima says, " Here, take my hand. 
"Tis true the gift is small, but when I can I'll give you heart and 
all." The lines show finely the agitation of the young person. She 
meant to say. Take my heart, but she is longing to be married to 
him, and the words slip out as it were unawares. Godfrey cries in 
raptures — 

" Thanks to the gods ! who such a present gave : 
Such radiant graces ne'er could man receive [resave) ; 
For who on earth has e'er such transports known ? 
What is the Turkish monax'ch on his throne. 
Hemmed round with rusty swords in pompous state ? 
Amidst his court no joys can be so great. 
Retire with me, my soul, no longer stay 
In public view ! the General moves this way." 

'Tis, indeed, the General ; who, reconciled with Sarsfield, straight- 
way, according to his custom, begins to boast about what he will do : 



176 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

*' Thrice welcome to my heart, thou best of friends ! 
The rock on which our holy faith depends ! 
May this our meeting as a tempest make 
The vast foundations of Britannia shake, 
Tear up their orange plant, and overwhelm 
The strongest bulwarks of the British realm ! 
Then shall the Dutch and Hanoverian fall, 
And James shall ride in triumph to Whitehall ; 
Then to protect our faith he will maintain 
An inquisition here like that in Spain. 

" Sars. Most bravely urged, my lord ! your skill, I own, 
Would be unparalleled— \\z.(S. you saved Athlone." 

" Had you saved Athlone ! " Sarsfield has him there. And 

the contest of words might have provoked quarrels still more fatal, 
but alarms are heard : the battle begins, and St. Ruth (still confident) 
goes to meet the enemy, exclaiming, " Athlone was sweet, but 
Auc^hrim shall be sour." The fury of the Irish is redoubled on hear- 
ino- of Talbot's heroic death : The Colonel's corpse is presently 
brought in, and to it enters Jemima, who bewails her loss in the 
following pathetic terms :— 

" Jemima. Oh !— he is dead !— my soul is all on fire, 
Witness ye gods ! — he did with fame expire. 
For Liberty a sacrifice was made, 
And fell, like Pompey, by some villain'' s blade. 
There lies a breathless corse, whose soul ne'er knew 
A thought but what was always just and true ; 
Look down from heaven, God of peace and love. 
Waft him with triumph to the throne above ; 
And, O ye winged guardians of the skies ! 
Tune your sweet harps and sing his obsequies ! 

Good friends, stand off whilst I embrace the ground 

Whereon he lies and bathe each mortal wound 

With brinish tears, that like to torrents run 
From these sad eyes. O heavens ! I'm undone. 

[Falls dozen on the body. 

" i5'«/^r Sir Charles Godfrey. He raises her. 

" Sir Char. Why do these precious eyes like fountains flow, 
To drozvn the radiant heaven that lies belozu ? 
Dry up your tears, I trust his soul ere this 
Has reached the mansions of eternal bliss. 
Soldiers ! bear hence the body out of sight. 

{They bear him off". 



IN AN ARM-CHAIR. 177 

•' yem. Oh, stay — ye murderers, cease to kill me quite 

See how he glares ! and see again he flies ! 

The clouds fly open, and he mounts the skies. 
Oh ! see his blood, it shines refulgent bright, \ 
I see him yet — I cannot lose him quite, V 

But still pursue him on — and— lose 7ny sight. ''^ ) 

The gradual disappearance of the Colonel's soul is now finely indi- 
cated, and so is her grief : when showing the body to Sir Charles, 
she says, " Behold the mangled cause of all my woes." The sorrow 
of youth, however, is but transitory ; and when her lover bids her 
dry her gushish tears, she takes out her pocket-handkerchief with 
the elasticity of youth, and consoles herself for the father in the 
husband. 

Act III. represents the English camp : Ginkell and his Generals 
discourse ; the armies are engaged. In Act IV. the English are 
worsted in spite of their valour, which Sarsfield greatly describes. 
" View," says he — 

" View how the foe like an impetuous flood 
Breaks through the smoke, the water, and — the mud ! " 

It becomes exceedingly hot. Colonel Earles says — 

" In vain Jove's lightnings issue from the sky, 
For death more sure from British ensigns fly. 
Their messengers of death much blood have spilled, 
And full three hundred of the Irish killed." 

A description of war (Herbert) : — 

" Now bloody colours wave in all their pride, 
And each prond hero does his beast bestride.^'' 

General Dorrington's description of the fight is, if possible, still 
more noble : 

*' Dor. Haste, noble friends, and save your lives by flight, 
For 'tis but madness if you stand to fight. 
Our cavalry the battle have forsook, 
And death appears in each dejected look ; 
Nothing but dread confusion can be seen. 
For severed heads and trunks o'erspread the green 
The fields, the vales, the hills, and vanquished plain, 
For five miles round are covered with the slain. 
Death in each quarter does the eye alarm. 
Here lies a leg, and there a shattered arm. 
N 



1,78 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

There heads appear, which, cloven by mighty bangs. 
And severed quite, on either shoulder hangs : 
This is the awful scene, my lords ! Oh, fly 
The impending danger, for your fate is nigh." 

Which party, however, is to win— the Irish or English? Their 
heroism is equal, and young Godfrey especially, on the Irish side, 
is carrying all before him — when he is interrupted in the slaughter 
by the ghost of his father : of old Sir Edmundbury, whose monument 
we may see in Westminster Abbey. Sir Charles, at first, doubts 
about the genuineness of this venerable old apparition ; and thus puts 
a case to the ghost : — 

" Were ghosts in heaven, in heaven they there would stay, 
Or if in hell, they could not get away.'' 

A clincher, certainly, as one would imagine : but the ghost jumps 
over the horns of the fancied dilemma, by saying that he is not at 
liberty to state where he comes from. 

" Ghost. Where visions rest, or souls imprisoned dwell, 
By heaven's command, we are forbid to tell ; 
But in the obscure grave — where corpse decay. 
Moulder in dust and putrefy away, — 
No rest is there ; for the immortal soul 
Takes its full flight and flutters round the Pole ; 
Sometimes I hover over the Euxine sea — 
From Pole to Sphere, until the judgment day — 
Over the Thracian Bosphorus do I float. 
And pass the Stygian lake in Charon's boat, 
O'er Vulcan's fiery court and sulph'rous cave, 
And ride like Neptune on a briny wave ; 
List to the blowing noise of Etna's flames, 
And court the shades of Amazonian dames ; 
Then take my flight up to the gleamy moon : 
Thus do I wander till the day of doom. 
Proceed I dare not, or I would unfold 
A horrid tale would make your blood run cold, 
Chill all your nerves and sinews in a trice 
Like whispering rivulets congealed to ice. 

" Sir Char. Ere you depart me, ghost, I here demand 
You'd let me know your last divine command ! " 

The ghost says that the young man must die in the battle ; that it 
will go ill for him if he die in the wrong cause ; and, therefore, 
that he had best go over to the Protestants — which poor Sir Charles 



/.V AN ARM-CHAIR. . 179 

(not without many sighs for Jemima) consents to do. He goes off 
then, saying — 

"I'll join my countrymen, and yet proclaim 
Nassau's great title to the crimson plainy 

In Act v., that desertion turns the fate of the day. Sarsfield 
enters with his sword drawn, and acknowledges his fate. " Aughrim," 
exclaims Lord Lucan, 

" Aughrim is now no more, St. Ruth is dead, 
And all his guards are from the battle fled. 
As he rode down the hill he met his fall, 
And died a victim to a cannon ball.'''' 

And he bids the Frenchman's body to 

" lie like Pompey in his gore. 

Whose hero's blood encircles the Egyptian shore." 

"Four hundred Irish prisoners we have got," exclaims an English 
General, "and seven thousand lyeth on the spot." In fact, they are 
entirely discomfited, and retreat off the stage altogether ; while, in 
the moment of victory, poor Sir Charles Godfrey enters, wounded to 
death, according to the old gentleman's prophecy. He is racked by 
bitter remorse : he tells his love of his treachery, and declares " no 
crocodile was ever more unjust." His agony increases, the " optic 
nerves grow dim and lose their sight, and all his veins are now ex- 
hausted quite ; " and he dies in the arms of his Jemima, who stabs her- 
self in the usual way. 

And so every one being disposed of, the drums and trumpets 
give a great peal, the audience huzzas, and the curtain falls on Ginkell 
and his friends exclaiming— 

*' May all the gods th' auspicious evening bless, 
Who crowns Great Britain's arrums with success ! " 

And questioning the prosody, what Englishman will not join in the 
sentiment ? 

In the interlude the band (the pipe) performs a favourite air. 
Jack the waiter and candle-snuffer looks to see that all is ready ; and 
after the dire business of the tragedy, comes in to sprinkle the stage 
with water (and perhaps a little whisky in it). Thus all things 
being arranged, the audience takes its seat again and the afterpiece 
begins. 

N 2 



i8o THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK, 

Two of the little yellow volumes purchased at Ennis are entitled 
"The Irish and Hibernian Tales." The former are modern, and 
the latter of an ancient sort ; and so great is the superiority of the 
old stories over the new, in fancy, dramatic interest, and humour, 
that one can't help fancying Hibernia must have been a very superior 
country to Ireland. 

These Hibernian novels, too, are evidently intended for the hedge- 
school universities. They have the old tricks and some of the old 
plots that one has read in many popular legends of almost all coun- 
tries, European and Eastern : successful cunning is the great virtue 
applauded ; and the heroes pass through a thousand wild extravagant 
dangers, such as could only have been invented when art was young 
and faith was large. And as the honest old author of the tales says 
" they are suited to the meanest as well as the highest capacity, 
tending both to improve the fancy and enrich the mind," let us con- 
clude the night's entertainment by reading one or two of them, and 
reposing after the doleful tragedy which has been represented. The 
"Black Thief" is worthy of the "Arabian Nights," I think,— as wild and 
odd as an Eastern tale. 

It begins, as usual, with a King and Queen who lived once on a 
time in the South of Ireland, and had three sons ; but the Oueen 
being on her death-bed, and fancying her husband might marry again, 
and unwilling that her children should be under the jurisdiction of 
any other woman, besought his Majesty to place them in a tower at 
her death, and keep them there safe until the young Princes should 
come of age. 

The Queen dies : the King of course marries again, and the new 
Queen, who bears a son too, hates the offspring of the former mar- 
riage, and looks about for means to destroy them. 

" At length the Queen, Iiavmg got some business with the hen-wife, 
went herself to her, and after a long conference passed, was taking 
leave of her, when the hen-wife prayed that if ever she should come 
back to her again she might break her neck. The Queen, greatly 
incensed at such a daring insult from one of her meanest subjects, to 
make such a prayer on her, demanded immediately the reason, or she 
would have her put to death, ' It was worth your while, madam,' says 
the hen-wife, ' to pay me well for it, for the reason I prayed so on you 
concerns you much.' 'What must I pay you?' asked the Queen. 
* You must give me,' says she, ' the full of a pack of wool : and I have 
an ancient crock which you must fill with butter ; likewise a barrel 
which you must fill for me full of wheat.' 'How much wool will it 



THE BLACK THIEF. i8i 

take to the pack?' says the Queen. * It will take seven herds of 
sheep/ said she, ' and their increase for seven years.' ' How much 
butter will it take to fill your crock ? ' ' Seven dairies/ said she, ' and the 
increase for seven years.' ' And how much will it take to fill the barrel 
you have ? ' says the Queen. ' It will take the increase of seven barrels 
of wheat for seven years. ' That is a great quantity,' says the Queen, 
^ but the reason must be extraordinary, and before I want it I will give 
you all you demand.' " 

The hen-wife acquaints the Queen with the existence of the three 
sons, and giving her Majesty an enchanted pack of cards, bids her to 
get the young men to play with her with these cards, and on their 
losing, to inflict upon them such a task as must infallibly end in their 
ruin. All young princes are set upon such tasks, and it is a sort of 
opening of the pantomime, before the tricks and activity begin. The 
Queen went home, and "got speaking " to the King " in regard of his 
children, and she broke it off to him in a very polite and engaging 
manner, so that he could see no muster or design in it." The King 
agreed to bring his sons to court, and at night, when the royal party 
"began to sport, and play at all kinds of diversions," the Queen 
cunningly challenged the three Princes to play cards. They lose, and 
she sends them in consequence to bring her back the Knight of the 
Glen's wild steed of bells. 

On their road (as wandering young princes, Indian or Irish, always 
do) they meet with the Black Thief of Sloan, who tells them what they 
must do. But they are caught in the attempt, and brought " into that 
dismal part of the palace where the Knight kept a furnace always 
boiling, in which he threw all offenders that ever came in his way, 
which in a few minutes would entirely consume them. 'Audacious 
villains ! ' says the Knight of the Glen, ' how dare you attempt so bold 
an action as to steal my steed ? see now the reward of your folly : for 
your greater punishment, I will not boil you all together, but one after 
the other, so that he that survives may witness the dire afflictions of 
his unfortunate companions.' So saying, he ordered his servants to 
stir up the fire. ' We will boil the eldest-looking of these young men 
first,' says he, ' and so on to the last, which will be this old champion 
with the black cap. He seems to be the captain, and looks as if he 
had come through many toils.' — ' I was as near death once as this 
Prince is yet,' says the Black Thief, ' and escaped : and so will he too.' 
' No, you never were,' said the Knight, ' for he is within two or three 
minutes of his latter end.' ' But/ says the Black Thief, ' I was 
within one moment of my death, and I am here yet.' ' How was 



i82 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

that?' says the Knight. 'I would be glad to hear it, for it seems 
to be impossible.' ' If you think, Sir Knight,' says the Black Thief, 
' that the danger I was in surpassed that of this young man, will you 
pardon him his crime .'^ 'I will,' says the Knight, ' so go on with your 
story.' 

"' I was, sir,' says he, 'a very wild boy in my youth, and came 
through many distresses : once in particular, as I was on my ramb- 
ling, I was benighted, and could find no lodging. At length I came to 
an old kiln, and being much fatigued, I went up and lay on the ribs. 
I had not been long there, when I saw three witches coming in with 
three bags of gold. Each put her bag of gold under her head as if to 
sleep. I heard the one say to the other that if the Black Thief came 
on them while they slept he would not leave them a penny. I found 
by their discourse that everybody had got my name into their mouth, 
though I kept silent as death during their discourse. At length they 
fell fast asleep, and then I stole softly down, and seeing some turf 
cimveiiient, I placed one under each of their heads, and off I went with 
their gold as fast as I could. 

" ' I had not gone far,' continued the Thief of Sloan, ' until I saw a 
greyhound, a hare, and a hawk in pursuit of me, and began to think it 
must be the witches that had taken that metamorphosis, in order that 
I might not escape them unseen either by land or water. Seeing they 
did not appear in any formidable shape, I was more than once resolved 
to attack them, thinking that with my broadsword I could easih- 
destroy them. But considering again that it was perhaps still in their 
power to become so, I gave over the attempt, and climbed with dif^culty 
up a tree, bringing my sword in my hand, and all the gold along with 
me. However, when they came to the tree they found what I had done, 
and, making further use of their hellish art, one of them was changed 
into a smith's anvil, and another into a piece of iron, of which the 
third one soon made a hatchet. Having the hatchet made, she fell to 
cutting down the tree, and in course of an hour it began to shake with 
me.' " 

This is very good and original. The " boiling " is in the first fee- 
faw-fum style, and the odd allusion to '*the old champion in the black 
cap" has the real Ogresque humour. Nor is that simple contrivance 
of the honest witches without its charm : for if, instead of wasting 
their time, the one in turning herself into an anvil, the other into a 
piece of iron, and so hammering out a hatchet at considerable labour 
and expense — if either of them had turned herself into a hatchet 
at once, they might have chopped down the Black Thief before 



THE BLACK THIEF. 183 

cock-crow, when they were obhged to fly off and leave him in pos- 
session of the bags of gold. 

The eldest Prince is ransomed by the Knight of the Glen in con- 
sequence of this story : and the second Prince escapes on account of 
the merit of a second story ; but the great story of all is of course re- 
served for the youngest Prince. 

" I was one day on my travels," says the Black Thief, " and I 
came into a large forest, where I wandered a long time and could not 
get out of it. At length I came to a large castle, and fatigue obliged 
me to call into the same, where I found a young woman, and a child 
sitting on her knee, and she crying. I asked her what made her cry, 
and where the lord of the castle was, for I wondered greatly that 1 
saw no stir of servants or any person about the place. 'It is well for 
you,' says the young woman, 'that the lord of this castle is not at 
home at present ; for he is a monstrous giant, with but one eye on his- 
forehead, who Hves on human flesh. He brought me this child,' says 
she — ' I do not know where he got it— and ordered me to make it into 
a pie, and I cannot help crying at the command.' I told her that if 
she knew of any place convenient that I could leave the child safely, i 
would do it, rather than that it should be buried in the bowels of such 
a monster. She told of a house a distance ofl", where I would get a 
woman who would take care of it. ' But what will I do in regard of 
the pie .'" ' Cut a finger off it,' said I, ' and I will bring you in a young- 
wild pig out of the forest, which you may dress as if it was the child, 
and put the finger in a certain place, that if the giant doubts anything 
about it, you may know where to turn it over at first, and when he sees 
it he will be fully satisfied that it is made of the child.' She agreed to 
the plan I proposed ; and, cutting off the child's finger, by her direc- 
tion I soon had it at the house she told me of and brought her the 
little pig in the place of it. She then made ready the pie ; and, after 
eating and drinking heartily myself, I was just taking my leave of the 
young woman when we observed the giant coming through the castle- 
gates. ' Lord bless me ! ' said she, ' what will you do now t run away 
and lie down among the dead bodies that he has in the room ' (showing 
me the place), ' and strip off your clothes that he may not know you 
from the rest if he has occasion to go that way.' I took her advice, 
and laid myself down among the rest, as if dead, to see how he would 
behave. The first thing I heard was him calling for his pie. When 
she set it down before him, he swore it smelt like swine's flesh : but, 
knowing where to find the finger, she immediately turned it up — which 
fairly convinced him of the contrary. The pie only served to sharpen 



1 84. THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

his appetite, and I heard him sharpen his knife, and saying he must 
have a collop or two, for he was not near satisfied. But what was my 
terror when I heard the giant groping among the bodies, and, fancying 
myself, cut the half of my hip off, and took it with him to be roasted. 
You may be certain I was in great pain ; but the fear of being killed 
prevented me from making any complaint. However, when he had 
eat all, be began to drink hot liquors in great abundance, so that in a 
short time he could not hold up his head, but threvv himself on a large 
creel he had made for the purpose, and fell fast asleep. When ever 
I heard him snoring, bad as I was, I went up and caused the woman 
to bind my wound with a handkerchief ; and taking the giant's spit, 
I reddened it in the fire, and ran it through the eye, but was not able 
to kill him. However, I left the spit sticking in his head and took to 
my heels ; but I soon found he was in pursuit of me, although bhnd ; 
and, having an enchanted ring, he threw it at me, and it fell on my big 
toe and remained fastened to it. The giant then called to the ring, 
'Where it was?' and to my great surprise it made him answer, * On 
my foot,' and he, guided by the same, made a leap at me — 
which I had the good luck to observe, and fortunately escaped the 
danger. However, I found running was of no use in saving me as 
long as I had the ring on my foot ; so I took my sword and cut off the 
toe it was fastened on, and threw both into a large fish-pond that was 
convenient. The giant called again to the ring, which, by the power 
of enchantment, always made answer ; but he, not knowing what I had 
done, imagined it was still on some part of me, and made a violent 
leap to seize me — when he went into the pond over head and ears and 
was drowned. Now, Sir Knight," said the Thief of Sloan, " you see 
what dangers I came through and always escaped ; but indeed I am 
lame for want of my toe ever since." 

And now remains but one question to be answered, viz. How is the 
Black Thief himself to come off ? This difficulty is solved in a very 
dramatic way and with a sudden turn in the narrative that is very wild 
and curious. 

" My lord and master," says an old woman that was listening all 
the time, "that story is but too true, as I well know \fo7- 1 am the very 
woman that was in the giant s castle, and you, my lord, the child that I 
was to make into a piej and this is the very man that saved your life, 
which you may know by the want of your finger that was taken off", as 
you have heard, to deceive the giant." 

That fantastical way of bearing testimony to the previous tale, by 
producing an old woman who says the tale is not only true, but she 



MANUS aMALAGHAN. 185 

was the very old woman who lived in the giant's castle, is almost a 
stroke of genius. It is fine to think that the simple chronicler found it 
necessary to have a proof for his story, and he was no doubt perfectly 
contented with the proof found. 

*• The Knight of the Glen, greatly surprised at what he had heard 
the old woman tell, and knowing he wanted his finger from his child- 
hood, began to understand that the story was true enough. ' And is 
this my dear deliverer ? ' says he. ' O brave fellow, I not only pardon 
you all, but I will keep you with myself while you live ; where you 
shall feast like princes and have every attendance that 1 have myself.' 
They all returned thanks on their knees, and the Black Thief told him 
the reason they attempted to steal the steed of bells, and the necessity 
they were under of going home. ' Well,' says the Knight of the Glen, 
' if that's the case, I bestow you my steed rather than this brave fellow 
should die : so you may go when you please : only remember to call 
and see me betimes, that we may know each other well.' They pro- 
mised they would, and with great joy they set off for the King their 
father's palace, and the Black Thief along with them. The wicked 
Queen was standing all this time on the tower, and hearing the bells 
ringing at a great distance off, knew very well it was the Princes coming 
home, and the steed with them, and through spite and vexation precipi- 
tated herself from the tower and was shattered to pieces. The three 
Princes lived happy and well during their father's reign, always keep- 
ing the Black Thief along with them ; but how they did after the old 
King's death is not known." 

Then we come upon a story that exists in many a European 
language — of the man cheating Death ; then to the history of the 
Apprentice Thief, who of course cheated his masters : which, too, is 
an old tale, and may have been told very likely among those Phoeni- 
cians who were the fathers of the Hibernians, for whom these tales 
were devised. A very curious tale is there concerning Manus 
O'Malaghan and the Fairies : — " In the parish of Ahoghill lived 
Manus O'Malaghan. As he was searching for a calf that had 
strayed, he heard many people talking. Drawing near, he distinctly 
heard them repeating, one after the other, * Get me a horse, get 
me a horse ; ' and * Get me a horse too,' says Manus. Manus was 
instantly mounted on a steed, surrounded with a vast crowd, who 
galloped off, taking poor Manus with them. In a short time they sud- 
denly stopped in a large wide street, asking Manus if he knew where 
he was ? ' Faith,' says he, ' I do not.' ^ You are i7i Spai7i^ said they." 

Here we have again the wild mixture of the positive and the 



i86 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

fanciful. The chronicler is careful to tell us why Manus went out 
searching for a calf, and this positiveness prodigiously increases the 
reader's wonder at the subsequent events. And the question and 
answer of the mysterious horsemen is fine : " Don't you know where 
you are.'' InSpainJ^ A vague solution, such as one has of occurrences 
in dreams sometimes. 

The history of Robin the Blacksmith is full of these strange flights 
of poetry. He is followed about " by a little boy in a green jacket,"' 
who performs the most wondrous feats of the blacksmith's art, as 
follows : — 

" Robin was asked to do something, who wisely shifted it, saying 
he would be very sorry not to give the honour of the first trick to his 
lordship's smith — at which the latter was called forth to the bellows. 
When the fire was well kindled, to the great surprise of all present, he 
blew a great shower of wheat out of the fire, which fell through all the 
shop. They then demanded of Robin to try what he could do. 
' Pho ! ' said Robin, as if he thought nothing of what was done. 
^^Come,' said he to the boy, 'I think I showed you something like 
that.' The boy goes then to the bellows and blew out a great flock of 
pigeons, who soon devoured all the grain and then disappeared. 

"The Dublin smith, sorely vexed that such a boy should outdo 
him, goes a second time to the bellows and blew a fine trout out of the 
hearth, who jumped into a little river that was running by the shop- 
door and was seen no more at that time. 

" Robin then said to the boy, ' Come, you must bring us yon trout 
back again, to let the gentlemen see we can do something.' Away the 
boy goes and blew a large otter out of the hearth, who immediately 
leaped into the river and in a short time returned with the trout in his 
mouth, and then disappeared. All present allowed that it was a folly 
to attempt a competition any further." 

The boy in the green jacket was one " of a kind of small beings 
called fairies ; " and not a little does it add to the charm of these wild 
tales to feel, as one reads them, that the writer must have believed in 
his heart a great deal of what he told. You see the tremor as it were, 
and a wild look of the eyes, as the story-teller sits in his nook and 
recites, and peers wistfully round lest the beings he talks of be really 
at hand. 

Let us give a couple of the little tales entire. They are not so 
fanciful as those before mentioned, but of the comic sort, and suited 
to the first kind of capacity mentioned by the author in his preface. 



HUDDEN AND DUDDEN. 187 

Bonalti antr fit's iacigljbouvs. 

" HUDDEN and Dudden and Donald O'Neary were near neighbours 
in the barony of BalHnconHg, and ploughed with three bullocks ; but 
the two former, envying the present prosperity of the latter, determined 
to kill his bullock to prevent his farm being properly cultivated and 
laboured— that, going back in the world, he might be induced to sell 
his lands, which they meant to get possession of Poor Donald, 
finding his bullock killed, immediately skinned it, and throwing the 
skin over his shoulder, with the fleshy side out, set off to the next town 
with it, to dispose of it to the best advantage. Going along the road 
a magpie flew on the top of the hide, and began picking it, chattering 
all the time. This 'bird had been taught to speak and imitate the 
human voice, and Donald, thinking he understood some words it was 
saying, put round his hand and caught hold of it. Having got 
possession of it, he put it under his great-coat, and so went on to the 
town. Having sold the hide, he went into an inn to take a dram; 
and, following the landlady into the cellar, he gave the bird a squeeze, 
which caused it to chatter some broken accents that surprised her 
very much. 'What is that I hear?' said she to Donald: 'I think it 
is talk, and yet I do not understand.' ' Indeed,' said Donald, ' it is a 
bird I have that tells me everything, and I always carry it with me to 
know when there is any danger. Faith,' says he, ' it says you have 
far better liquor than you are giving me.' ' That is strange,' said she, 
going to another cask of better quality, and asking him if he would 
sell the bird. ' I will,' said Donald, ' if I get enough for it.' ' I will 
fill your hat with silver if you will leave it with me.' Donald was 
glad to hear the news, and, taking the silver, set off, rejoicing at his 
good luck. He had not been long home when he met with Hudden 
and Dudden. ' Ha ! ' said he, ' you thought you did me a bad turn, 
but you could not have done me a better : for look here what I have 
got for the hide,' showing them the hatful of silver. ' You never saw 
such a demand for hides in your life as there is at present.' Hudden 
and Dudden that very night killed their bullocks, and set out the next 
morning to sell their hides. On coming to the place they went to all 
the merchants, but could only get a trifle for them. At last they had 
to take what they could get, and came home in a great rage and 
vowing revenge on poor Donald. He had a pretty good guess how 
matters would turn out, and his bed being under the kitchen-window, 
he was afraid they would rob him, or perhaps kill him when asleep ; 



1 88 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

and on that account, when he was going to bed, he left his old mother 
in his bed, and lay down in her place, which was in the other side of 
the house, and they, taking the old woman for Donald, choked her in 
the bed ; but he making some noise, they had to retreat and leave the 
money behind them, which grieved them very much. However, by 
daybreak, Donald got his mother on his back, and carried her to town. 
Stopping at a well, he fixed his mother with her staff as if she was 
stooping for a drink, and then went into a public-house convenient 
and called for a dram. ' I wish,' said he to a woman that stood near 
him, ' you would tell my mother to come in. She is at yon well trying 
to get a drink, and she is hard in hearing : if she does not observe 
you, give her a little shake, and tell her that I want her.' The woman 
called her several times, but she seemed to take no notice : at length 
she went to her and shook her by the arm ; but when she let her go 
again, she tumbled on her head into the well, and, as the woman 
thought, was drowned. She, in great fear and surprise at the accident, 
told Donald what had happened. 'O mercy,' said he, 'what is this?' 
He ran and pulled her out of the well, weeping and lamenting all the 
time, and acting in such a manner that you would imagine that he had 
lost his senses. The woman, on the other hand, was far worse than 
Donald : for his grief was only feigned, but she imagined herself to be 
the cause of the old woman's death. The inhabitants of the town, 
hearing what had happened, agreed to make Donald up a good sum 
of money for his loss, as the accident happened in their place ; and 
Donald brought a greater sum home with him than he got for the 
magpie. They buried Donald's mother; and as soon as he saw 
Hudden and Dudden, he showed them the last purse of money he had 
got. 'You thought to kill me last night,' said he ; 'but it was good for 
me it happened on my mother, for I got all that purse for her to 
make gunpowder.' 

" That very night Hudden and Dudden killed their mothers, and 
the next morning set off with them to town. On coming to the town 
with their burden on their backs, they went up and down crying, 
' Who will buy old wives for gunpowder? ' so that every one laughed 
at them, and the boys at last clodded them out of the place. They 
then saw the cheat, and vowing revenge on Donald, buried the old 
women and set off in pursuit of him. Coming to his house, they found 
him sitting at his breakfast, and seizing him, put him in a sack, and 
went to drown him in a river at some distance. As they were going 
along the highway they raised a hare, which they saw had but three 
feet, and, throwing off the sack, ran after her, thinking by appearance 



J 



HUD DEN AND DUDDEN. 189 

she would be easily taken. In their absence there came a drover that 
way, and hearing Donald singing in the sack, wondered greatly what 
could be the matter. ' What is the reason,' said he, ' that you are 
singing, and you confined ? ' ' Oh, I am going to heaven,' said 
Donald : '■ and in a short time I expect to be free from trouble.' * Oh, 
dear,' said the drover, * what will I give you if you let me to your 
place.?' * Indeed I do not know,' said he : 'it would take a good sum.' 
' I have not much money,' said the drover ; ' but I have twenty head 
of fine cattle, which I will give you to exchange places with me.' 
' Well, well,' says Donald, ' I don't care if I should : loose the sack 
and I will come out.' In a moment the drover liberated him, and 
went into the sack himself: and Donald drove home the fine heifers 
and left them in his pasture. 

" Hudden and Dudden having caught the hare, returned, and 
getting the sack on one of their backs, carried Donald, as they 
thought, to the river, and threw him in, where he immediately sank. 
They then marched home, intending to take immediate possession of 
Donald's property; but how great was their surprise, when they found 
him safe at home before them, with such a fine herd of cattle, whereas 
they knew he had none before? 'Donald,' said they, ^what is all this ! 
We thought you were drowned, and yet you are here before us 1 ' 
' Ah ! ' said he, ' if I had but help along with me when you threw me 
in, it would have been the best job ever I met with ; for of all the 
sight of cattle and gold that ever was seen, is there, and no one to 
own them ; but I was not able to manage more than what you see, 
and I could show you the spot where you might get hundreds.' They 
both swore they would be his friends, and Donald accordingly led 
them to a very deep part of the river, and lifting up a stone, ' Now,' 
said he, ' watch this,' throwing it into the stream, * There is the very 
place, and go in, one of you, first, and if you want help you have 
nothing to do but call.' Hudden jumping in, and sinking to the 
bottom, rose up again, and making a bubbling noise as those do that 
are drowning, seemed trying to speak but could not. ' What is that 
he is saying now? ' says Dudden. ' Faith,' says Donald, ' he is calling 
for help — don't you hear him? Stand about,' continued he, running 
back, 'till I leap in. I know how to do better than any of you.' 
Dudden, to have the advantage of him, jumped in off the bank, and 
was drowned along with Hudden. And this was the end of Hudden 
and Dudden." 



190 THE IRISH SKETCH BOuK 



^6e ^paeman. 

" A POOR man in the North of Ireland was under the necessity of 
selHng his cow to help to support his family. Having sold his cow, 
he went into an inn and called for some liquor. Having drunk pretty 
heartily, he fell asleep, and when he awoke he found he had been 
robbed of his money. Poor Roger was at a loss to know how to act ; 
and, as is often the case, when the landlord found that his money was 
gone, he turned him out of doors. The night was extremely dark, and 
the poor man was compelled to take up his lodging in an old unin- 
habited house at the end of the town. 

" Roger had not remained long here until he was surprised by the 
noise of three men, whom he observed making a hole, and, having 
deposited something therein, closing it carefully up again and then 
going away. The next morning, as Roger was walking towards the 
town, he heard that a cloth-shop had been robbed to a great amount, 
and that a reward of thirty pounds was offered to any person who 
could discover the thieves. This was joyful news to Roger, who 
recollected what he had been witness to the night before. He 
accordingly went to the shop and told the gentleman that for the 
reward he would recover the goods, and secure the robbers, provided 
he got six stout men to attend him. All which was thankfully granted 
him. 

" At night Roger and his men concealed themselves in the old 
house, and in a short time after the robbers came to the spot for the 
purpose of removing their booty ; but they were instantly seized and 
carried into the town prisoners, with the goods. Roger received 
the reward and returned home, well satisfied with his good luck. 
Not many days after, it was noised over the country that this robber>- 
was discovered by the help of one of the best Spaemen to be found- 
insomuch that it reached the ears of a worthy gentleman of the 
county of Derry, who made strict inquiry to find him out. Having at 
length discovered his abode, he sent for Roger, and told him he was 
every day losing some valuable article, and as he was famed for 
discovering lost things, if he could find out the same, he should be 
handsomely rewarded. Poor Roger was put to a stand, not knowing 
what answer to make, as he had not the smallest knowledge of the 
like. But recovering himself a little, he resolved to humour the joke ; 
and, thinking he would make a good dinner and some drink of it, 
told the gentleman he would try what he could do, but that he must 



THE SPAEMAN. 191 

have a room to himself for three hours, during which time he must 
have three bottles of strong ale and his dinner. All which the 
gentleman told him he should have. No sooner was it made known 
that the Spaeman was in the house than the servants were all in con- 
fusion, wishing to know what would be said. 

"As soon as Roger had taken his dinner, he was shown into an 
elegant room, where the gentleman sent him a quart of ale by the 
butler. No sooner had he set down the ale than Roger said, ^ There 
comes one of them ' (intimating the bargain he had made with the 
gentleman for the three quarts), which the butler took in a wrong light 
and imagined it was himself. He went away in great confusion and 
told his wife. ' Poor fool,' said she, 'the fear makes you think it is 
you he means ; but I will attend in your place, and hear what he will 
say to me.' Accordingly she carried the second quart : but no sooner 
had she opened the door than Roger cried, 'There comes two of 
them.' The woman, no less surprised than her husband, told him the 
Spaeman knew her too. ' And what will we do 1 ' said he. ' We will 
be hanged.' ' I will tell you what we must do,' said she : ' we must 
send the groom the next time ; and if he is known, we must offer him 
a good sum not to discover on us.' The butler went to William and 
told him the whole story, and that he must go next to see what the 
Spaeman would say to him, telling him at the same time what to do 
in case he was known also. When the hour was expired, WiHiam 
was sent with the third quart of ale— which when Roger observed, he 
cried out, ' There is the third and last of them ! ' At which the groom 
changed colour, and told him ' that if he would not discover on them, 
they would show him where the goods were all concealed and give him 
five pounds besides.' Roger, not a little surprised at the discovery he 
had made, told him ' if he recovered the goods, he would follow them 
no further.' 

" By this time the gentleman called Roger to know how he had 
succeeded. He told him '' he could find the goods, but that the thief 
was gone.' ' I will be well satisfied,' said he, ' with the goods, for 
some of them are very valuable.' ' Let the butler come along with 
me, and the whole shall be recovered.' Roger was accordingly con- 
ducted to the back of the stables, where the articles were concealed, — 
such as silver cups, spoons, bowls, knives, forks, and a variety of 
other articles of great value. 

" When the supposed Spaeman brought back the stolen goods, 
the gentleman was so highly pleased with Roger that he insisted on 
his remaining with him always, as he supposed he would be perfectly 



192 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK, 

safe as long as he was about his house. Roger gladly embraced the 
offer, and in a few days took possession of a piece of land which the 
gentleman had given to him in consideration of his great abilities. 

" Some time after this the gentleman was relating to a large 
company the discovery Roger had made, and that he could tell any- 
thing. One of the gentlemen said he would dress a dish of meat, 
and bet fifty pounds that he could not tell what was in it, though he 
would allow him to taste it. The bet being taken and the dish 
dressed, the gentleman sent for Roger and told him the bet that was 
depending on him. Poor Roger did not know what to do ; but at last 
he consented to the trial. The dish being produced, he tasted it, but 
could not tell what it was. At last, seeing he was fairly beat, he said, 
^ Gentlemen, it is folly to talk : the fox may run awhile, but he is 
caught at last,' — allowing with himself that he was found out. The 
gentleman that had made the bet then confessed that it was a fox he 
had dressed in the dish : at which they all shouted out in favour of 
the Spaeman, — particularly his master, who had more confidence in 
him than ever. 

" Roger then went home, and so famous did he become, that no 
one dared take anything but what belonged to them, fearing that the 
Spaeman would discover on them." 



And so we shut up the Hedge-school Library, and close the Gal- 
way Nights' Entertainments. They are not quite so genteel as 
Almack's to be sure ; but m.any a lady who has her opera-box in 
London has listened to a piper in Ireland. 



^■f'" ^j,, 




Apropos of pipers, here is a young one that I caught and copied 
to-day. He was paddling in the mud, shining in the sun careless of 



A GAL WAV MUSICIAN. 193 

his rays, and playing his little tin music as happy as Mr, Cooke with 
his oboe. 

Perhaps the above verses and tales are not unlike my little Galway 
musician. They are grotesque and rugged ; but they are pretty and 
innocent-hearted too ; and as such, polite persons may deign to look 
at them for once in a way. While we have Signor Costa in a white 
neckcloth ordering opera-bands to play for us the music of Donizetti, 
which is not only sublime but genteel : of course such poor little 
operatives as he who plays the wind-instrument yonder cannot 
expect to be heard often. But is not this Galway? and how far is 
Galway from the Haymarket ? 



194 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

FROM GALWAY TO BALI.INAHINCH. 



HE Clifdeii car, which 
carries the Dublin letters 
into the heart of Conne- 
mara, conducts the pas- 
senger over one of the 
most wild and beautiful 
districts that it is ever the 
fortune of a traveller to 
examine ; and I could not 
help thinking, as we passed 
through it, at how much 
pains and expense honest 
Enghsh cockneys are to 
go and look after natural 
beauties far inferior, in 
countries which, though 
more distant, are not a whit more strange than this one. No doubt, 
ere long, when people know how easy the task is, the rush of London 
tourism will come this way : and I shall be very happy if these pages 
shall be able to awaken in one bosom beating in Tooley Street or the 
Temple the desire to travel towards Ireland next year. 

After leaving the quaint old town behind us, and ascending one 
or two small eminences to the north-westward, the traveller, from the 
car, gets a view of the wide sheet of Lough Corrib shining in the sun, 
as we saw it, with its low dark banks stretching round it. If the view 
is gloomy, at least it is characteristic : nor are we delayed by it very 
long ; for though the lake stretches northwards into the very midst of 
the Joyce country, (and is there in the close neighbourhood of another 
huge lake. Lough Mask, which again is near to another sheet of 
water,) yet from this road henceforth, after keeping company with it 
for some five miles, we only get occasional views of it, passing over 




• OUGHTERARD. 195 

hills and through trees, by many rivers and smaller lakes, which arc 
dependent upon that of Corrib. Gentlemen's seats, on the road from 
Galway to Moycullen, are scattered in great profusion. Perhaps there 
is grass growing on the gravel-walk, and the iron gates of the tumble- 
down old lodges arc rather rickety ; but, for all that, the places look 
comfortable, hospitable, and spacious. As for the shabbiness and 
want of finish here and there, the English eye grows quite accustomed 
to it in a month ; and I find the bad condition of the Galway houses 
by no means so painful as that of the places near Dublin. At some of 
the lodges, as we pass, the mail-carman, with a warning shout, flings 
a bag of letters. I saw a little party looking at one which lay there 
in the road crying, " Come, take me ! " but nobody cares to steal a bag 
of letters in this country, I suppose, and the carman drove on with- 
out any alarm. Two days afterwards a gentleman with whom I was 
in company left on a rock his book of fishing-flies; and I can assure 
you there was a very different feeling expressed about the safety of 
ihat. 

In the first part of the journey, the neighbourhood of the road 
seemed to be as populous as in other parts of the country : troops of 
red-petticoated peasantry peering from their stone-cabins; yelling 
children following the car, and crying, " Lash, lash ! " It was Sunday, 
and you would see many a white chapel among the green bare plains 
to the right of the road, the court-yard blackened with a swarm of 
cloaks. The service seems to continue (on the part of the people) 
all day. Troops of people issuing from the chapel met us at Moy- 
cullen ; and ten miles further on, at Oughterard, their devotions did 
not yet seem to be concluded. 

A more beautiful village can scarcely be seen than this. It stands 
upon Lough Corrib, the banks of which are here, for once at least, 
picturesque and romantic: and a pretty river, the Feogh, comes 
rushing over rocks and by woods until it passes the town and meets 
the lake. Some pretty buildings in the village stand on each bank 
of this stream : a Roman Catholic chapel with a curate's neat lodge ; a 
little church on one side of it, a fine court-house of grey stone on the 
other. And here it is that we get into the famous district of Conne- 
mara, so celebrated in Irish stories, so mysterious to the London 
tourist. "It presents itself," says the Guide-book, "under every 
possible combination of heathy moor, bog, lake, and mountain. Ex- 
tensive mossy plains and wild pastoral valleys lie embosomed among 
the mountains, and support numerous herds of cattle and horses, for 
which the district has been long celebrated. These wild solitudes, 

o 2 



196 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

^vhich occupy by far the greater part of the centre of the county, are 
held by a hardy and ancient race of grazing farmers, who hve in a 
very primitive state, and, generally speaking, till little beyond what 
supplies their immediate wants. For the first ten miles the country 
is comparatively open ; and the mountains on the left, which are not 
of great elevation, can be distinctly traced as they rise along the edge 
of the heathy plain. 

" Our road continues along the Feogh river, which expands itself 
into several considerable lakes, and at five miles from Oughterard we 
reach Lough Bofin, which the road also skirts. Passing in succession 
Lough-a-Preaghan, the lakes of Anderran and Shindella, at ten miles 
from Oughterard we reach Slyme and Lynn's Inn, or Half-way House, 
which is near the shore of Loughonard. Now, as we advance towards 
the group of Binabola, or the Twelve Pins, the most gigantic scenery 
is displayed." 

But the best guide-book that ever was written cannot set the view 
before the mind's eye of the reader, and I won't attempt to pile up big 
words in place of these wild mountains, over which the clouds as they 
passed, or the sunshine as it went and came, cast every variety of tint, 
light, and shadow; nor can it be expected that long, level sentences, 
however smooth and shining, can be made to pass as representations 
of those calm lakes by which we took our way. All one can do is to 
lay down the pen and ruminate, and cry, " Beautiful ! " once more ; and 
to the reader say, " Come and see ! " 

Wild and wide as the prospect around us is, it has somehow a 
kindly, friendly look; differing in this from the fierce loneliness of 
some similar scenes in Wales that I have viewed. Ragged women 
and children come out of rude stone-huts to see the car as it passes. 
But it is impossible for the pencil to give due raggedness to the rags, 
or to convey a certain picturesque mellowness of colour that the 
garments assume. The sexes, with regard to raiment, do not seem to 
be particular. There were many boys on the road in the national 
red petticoat, having no other covering for their lean brown legs. As 
for shoes, the women eschew them almost entirely; and I saw a 
peasant trudging from mass in a handsome scarlet cloak, a fine blue- 
cloth gown, turned up to show a new lining of the same colour, and 
a petticoat quite white and neat — in a dress of which the cost must 
have been at least lo/. ; and her husband walked in front carrying her 
shoes and stockings. 

The road had conducted us for miles through the vast property of 
the gentleman to whose house I was bound, Mr. Martin, the Member 



AN IRISH GENTLEMAN'S HOUSE. 197 

for the county ; and the last and prettiest part of the journey was round 
the Lake of BalHnahinch, with tall mountains rising immediately above 
us on the right, pleasant woody hills on the opposite side of the lake, 
with the roofs of the houses rising above the trees ; and in an island 
in the midst of the water a ruined old castle cast a long white reflec- 
tion into the blue waters where it lay. A land-pirate used to live in 
that castle, one of the peasants told me, in the time of " Oliver Crom- 
well." And a fine fastness it was for a robber, truly ; for there was no 
road through these wild countries in his time— nay, only thirty years 
since, this lake was at three days' distance of Galway. Then comes 
the question, What, in a country where there were no roads and no 
travellers, and where the inhabitants have been wretchedly poor from 
time immemorial, — what was there for the land-pirate to rob ? But 
let us not be too curious about times so early as those of Oliver Crom- 
well. I have heard the name many times from the Irish peasant, who 
still has an awe of the grim, resolute Protector. 

The builder of Ballinahinch House has placed it to command a 
view of a pretty melancholy river that runs by it, through many green 
flats and picturesque rocky grounds ; but from the lake it is scarcely 
visible. And so, in like manner, I fear it must remain invisible to the 
reader too, with all its kind inmates, and frank, cordial hospitality: 
unless he may take a fancy to visit Galway himself, when, as I can 
vouch, a very small pretext will make him enjoy both. 

It will, however, be only a small breach of confidence to say that 
the major-domo of the establishment (who has adopted accurately the 
voice and manner of his master, with a severe dignity of his own 
which is quite original,) ordered me on going to bed " not to move 
in the morning till he called me," at the same time expressing a hearty 
hope that I should " want nothing more that evening." Who would 
dare, after such peremptory orders, not to fall asleep immediately, 
and in this way disturb the repose of Mr. J— n M-ll-y ? 

There may be many comparisons drawn between English and 
Irish gentlemen's houses; but perhaps the most striking point of 
difference between the two is the immense following of the Irish house, 
such as would make an English housekeeper crazy almost. Three 
comfortable, well-clothed, good-humoured fellows walked down with 
me from the car, persisting in carrying one a bag, another a sketching- 
stool, and so on. Walking about the premises in the morning, sundry 
others were visible in the court-yard, and near the kitchen-door. In 
the grounds a gentleman, by name Mr. Marcus C-rr, began discours- 
ing to me regarding the place, the planting, the fish, the grouse, and 



198 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK, 

the Master; being himself, doubtless, one of the irregulars of the 
house. As for maids, there were half-a-score of them skurrying about 
the house ; and I am not ashamed to confess that some of them were 
exceedingly good-looking. And if I might venture to say a word 
more, it would be respecting Connemara breakfasts ; but this would 
be an entire and flagrant breach of confidence : and, to be sure, the 
dinners were just as good. 

One of the days of my three days' visit was to be devoted to the 
lakes ; and as a party had been arranged for the second day after 
my arrival, I was glad to take advantage of the society of a gentleman 
staying in the house, and ride with him to the neighbouring town of 
Clifden. 

The ride thither from Ballinahinch is surprisingly beautiful ; and 
as you ascend the high ground from the two or three rude stone-huts 
which face the entrance-gates of the house, there are views of the lakes 
and the surrounding country which the best parts of Killarney do not 
surpass, I think ; although the Connemara lakes do not possess the 
advantage of wood which belongs to the famous Kerry landscape. 

But the cultivation of the country is only in its infancy as yet, and 
it is easy to see how vast its resources are, and what capital and culti- 
vation may do for it. In the green patches among the rocks, and on 
the mountain-sides, wherever crops were grown, they flourished ; plenty 
of natural wood is springing up in various places ; and there is no end 
to what the planter may do, and to what time and care may effect. 
The carriage-road to Clifden is but ten years old : as it has brought 
the means of communication into the country, the commerce will 
doubtless follow it ; and in fact, in going through the whole kingdom, 
one can't but be struck with the idea that not one-hundredth part of 
its capabilities are yet brought into action, or even known perhaps, 
and that, by the easy and certain progress of time, Ireland will be poor 
Ireland no longer. 

For instance, we rode by a vast green plain, skirting a lake and 
river, which is now useless almost for pasture, and which a little drain- 
ing will convert into thousands of acres of rich productive land. 
Streams and falls of water dash by everywhere — they have only to 
utilise this water-power for mills and factories — and hard by are some 
of the finest bays in the world, where ships can deliver and receive 
foreign and home produce. At Roundstone especially, where a little 
town has been erected, the bay is said to be unexampled for size, depth, 
and shelter ; and the Government is now, through the rocks and 
hills on their wild shore, cutting a coast-road to Bunown, the most 



CLIFDEN, 199 

westerly part of Connemara, whence there is another good road to 
Clifden. Among the charges which the "Repealers" bring against 
the Union, they should include at least this : they would never have 
had these roads but for the Union : roads which are as much at 
the charge of the London tax-payer as of the most ill-used Milesian 
in Connaught, 

A string of small lakes follow the road to Clifden, with mountains 
on the right of the traveller for the chief part of the way. A few 
figures at work in the bog-lands, a red petticoat passing here and 
there, a goat or two browsing among the stones, or a troop of ragged 
whitey-brown children who came out to gaze at the car, form the chief 
society on the road. The first house at the entrance to Clifden 
is a gigantic poor-house— tall, large, ugly, comfortable ; it commands 
the town, and looks almost as big as every one of the houses therein. 
The town itself is but of a few years' date, and seems to thrive in 
its small way. Clifden Castle is a fine chateau in the neighbour- 
hood, and belongs to another owner of immense lands in Galway 

Mr. D'Arcy. 

Here a drive was proposed along the coast to Bunown, and I was 
glad to see some more of the country, and its character. Nothing 
can be wilder. We passed little lake after lake, lying a few furlongs 
inwards from the shore. There were rocks everywhere, some patches 
of cultivated land here and there, nor was there any want of inhabi- 
tants along this savage coast. There were numerous cottages, if 
cottages they may be called, and women, and above all, children in 
plenty. On the next page is one of the former— her attitude as she 
stood gazing at the car. To depict the multiplicity of her rags would 
require a month^s study. 

At length we came in sight of a half-built edifice which is approached 
by a rocky, dismal, grey road, guarded by two or three broken gates, 
against which rocks and stones were piled, which had to be removed 
to give an entrance to our car. The gates were closed so laboriously, 
I presume, to prevent the egress of a single black consumptive pig, far 
gone in the family-way— a teeming skeleton— that was cropping the 
thin dry grass that grew upon a round hill which rises behind this 
most dismal castle of Bunown. 

If the traveller only seeks for strange sights, this place will repay 
his curiosity. Such a dismal house is not to be seen in all England : 
or, perhaps, such a dismal situation. The sea lies before and behind ; 
and on each side, likewise, are rocks and copper-coloured meadows, 
by which a few trees have made an attempt to grow. The owner of 



200 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



the house had, however, begun to add to it ; and there, unfinished, is 
a whole apparatus of turrets, and staring raw stone and mortar, and 
fresh ruinous carpenters' work. And then the court-yard ! — tumble- 
down out-houses, staring empty pointed windows, and new-smeared 
plaster cracking from the walls— a black heap of turf, a mouldy pump, 
a wretched old coal-skuttle, emptily sunning itself in the midst of this 
cheerful scene ! There was an old Gorgon who kept the place, and 
who was in perfect unison with it : Venus herself would become bearded, 
blear-eyed, and haggard, if left to be the housekeeper of this dreary 
place. 

In the house was a comfortable parlour, inhabited by the priest 




who has the painful charge of the district. Here wsre his books and 
his breviaries, his reading-desk with the cross engraved upon it, and 
his portrait of Daniel O'Connell the Liberator to grace the walls of 
his lonely cell. There was a dead crane hanging at the door on a gaff: 
his red fish-like eyes were staring open, and his eager grinning bill. 
A rifle-ball had passed through his body. And this was doubtless 
the only game about the place ; for we saw the sportsman who had 
killed the bird hunting vainly up the round hill for other food for 
powder. This gentleman had had good sport, he said, shooting seals 
upon a neighbouring island, four of which animals he had slain. 



A COUNTRY HOUSE IN THE FAR WEST. 201 

Mounting up the round hill, we had a view of the Sline Lights — the 
most westerly point in Ireland. 

Here too was a ruined sort of summer-house, dedicated "Deo 
HiBERNL^ LiBERATORi." When these lights were put up, I am told 
the proprietor of Bunown was recommended to apply for compensa- 
tion to Parliament, inasmuch as there would be no more wrecks on 
the coast : from which branch of commerce the inhabitants of the 
district used formerly to derive a considerable profit. Between these 
Sline Lights and America nothing lies but the Atlantic. It was 
beautifully blue and bright on this day, and the sky almost cloudless ; 
but I think the brightness only made the scene more dismal, it being 
of that order of beauties which cannot bear the full light, but require 
a cloud or a curtain to set them off to advantage. A pretty story 
was told me by the gentleman who had killed the seals. The place 
where he had been staying for sport was almost as lonely as this 
Bunown, and inhabited by a priest too — a young, lively, Avell- educated 
man. " When I came here first," the priest said, " / cried for two days: " 
but afterwards he grew to like the place exceedingly, his whole heart 
being directed towards it, his chapel, and his cure. Who would not 
honour such missionaries — the virtues they silently practise, and the 
doctrines they preach.^ After hearing that story, I think Bunown 
looked not quite so dismal, as it is inhabited, they say, by such another 
character. What a pity it is that John Tuam, in the next county of 
Mayo, could not find such another hermitage to learn modesty in, and 
forget his Graceship, his Lordship, and the sham titles by which he 
sets such store. 

A moon as round and bright as any moon that ever shone, and 
riding in a sky perfectly cloudless, gave us a good promise of a fine 
day for the morrow, which was to be devoted to the lakes in the neigh- 
bourhood of BaUinahinch : one of which. Lough Ina, is said to be of 
exceeding beauty. But no man can speculate upon Irish weather. I 
have seen a day beginning with torrents of rain that looked as if a 
deluge was at hand, clear up in a few minutes, without any reason, and 
against the prognostications of the glass and all other weather-prophets. 
So in like manner, after the astonishingly fine night, there came a 
villanous dark day : which, however, did not set in fairly for rain, 
until we were an hour on our journey, with a couple of stout boatmen 
rowing us over BaUinahinch Lake. Being, however, thus fairly started, 
the water began to come down, not in torrents certainly, but in that 
steady, creeping, insinuating mist, of which we scarce know the luxury 



202 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK, 

in England ; and which, I am bound to say, will wet a man's jacket as 
satisfactorily as a cataract would do. 

It was just such another day as that of the famous stag-hunt at 
Killarney, in a word ; and as, in the first instance, we went to see the 
deer killed, and saw nothing thereof, so, in the second case, we went 
to see the landscape with precisely the same good fortune. The 
mountains covered their modest beauties in impenetrable veils of 
clouds ; and the only consolation to the boat's crew was, that it was 
a remarkably good day for trout-fishing — which amusement some 
people are said to prefer to the examination of landscapes, however 
beautiful. 

O you who laboriously throw flies in English rivers, and catch, at 
the expiration of a hard day's walking, casting, and wading, two or 
three feeble little brown trouts of two or three ounces in weight, how 
would you rejoice to have but an hour's sport in Derryclear or Balli- 
nahinch ; where you have but to cast, and lo ! a big trout springs at 
your fly, and, after making a vain struggling, splashing, and plunging 
for a while, is infallibly landed in the net and thence into the boat. 
The single rod in the boat caught enough fish in an hour to feast the 
crew, consisting of five persons, and the family of a herd of Mr. 
Martin's, who has a pretty cottage on Derryclear Lake, inhabited by a 
cow and its calf, a score of fowls, and I don't know how many sons 
and daughters. 

Having caught enough trout to satisfy any moderate appetite, like 
true sportsmen the gentlemen onboard our boat became eager to hook 
a salmon. Had they hooked a few salmon, no doubt they would 
have trolled for whales, or for a mermaid ; one of which finny beauties 
the waterman swore he had seen on the shore of Derryclear — he with 
Jim Mullen being above on a rock, the mermaid on the shore directly 
beneath them, visible to the middle, and as usual " racking her hair." 
It was fair hair, the boatman said ; and he appeared as convinced of 
the existence of the mermaid as he was of the trout just landed in the 
boat. 

In regard of mermaids, there is a gentleman living near Killala Bay, 
whose name was mentioned to me, and who declares solemnly that one 
day, shooting on the sands there, he saw a mermaid, and determined 
to try her with a shot. So he drew the small charge from his gun and 
loaded it with ball— that he always had by him for seal-shooting — fired, 
and hit the mermaid through the breast. The screams and moans of 
the creature — whose person he describes most accurately — were the 
most horrible, heart-rending noises that he ever, he said, heard ; and 



I 



FLY-FISHING. 203 

not only were they heard by him, but by the fishermen along the coast, 

who were furiously angry against Mr. A n, because, they said, the 

injury done to the mermaid would cause her to drive all the fish away 
from the bay for years to come. 

But we did not, to my disappointment, catch a glimpse of one of 
these interesting beings, nor of the great sea-horse which is said to 
inhabit these waters, nor of any fairies (of whom the stroke-oar, 
Mr. Marcus, told us not to speak, for they didn't like bein' spoken 
of) ; nor even of a salmon, though the fishermen produced the most 
tempting flies. The only animal of any size that was visible we saw 
while lying by a swift black river that comes jumping with innu- 
merable little waves into Derryclear, and where the salmon are 
especially suffered to " stand : " this animal was an eagle — a real wild 
eagle, with grey wings and a white head and belly : it swept round us, 
within gun-shot reach, once or twice, through the leaden sky, and then 
settled on a grey rock and began to scream its shrill, ghastly aquiline 
note. 

The attempts on the salmon having failed, the rain continuing to 
fall steadily, the herd's cottage before named was resorted to : when 
Marcus, the boatman, commenced forthwith to gut the fish, and taking 
down some charred turf-ashes from the blazing fire, on which about a 
hundredweight of potatoes were boiling, he — Marcus — proceeded to 
grill on the floor some of the trout, which we afterwards ate with im- 
measurable satisfaction. They were such trouts as, when once tasted, 
remain for ever in the recollection of a commonly grateful mind — rich, 
flaky, creamy, full of flavour. A V'Ax'i'ixdiXs. gourinand would have paid 
ten francs for the smallest coolcen among them ; and, when transported 
to his capital, how different in flavour would they have been ! — how 
inferior to what they were as we devoured them, fresh from the fresh 
waters of the lake, and jerked as it were from the water to the 
gridiron ! The world had not had time to spoil those innocent beings 
before they were gobbled up with pepper and salt, and missed, no 
doubt, by their friends. I should like to know more of their " sctP 
But enough of this : my feelings overpower me : suffice it to say, they 
were red or salmon trouts — none of your white-fleshed brown-skinned 
river fellows. 

When the gentlemen had finished their repast, the boatmen and 
the family set to work upon the potatoes, a number of the re- 
maining fish, and a store of other good things ; then we all sat 
round the turf-fire in the dark cottage, the rain coming down steadily 
outside, and veiling everything except the shrubs and verdure imme- 



204 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

diately about the cottaj^e. The herd, the herd's wife, and a nonde- 
script female friend, two healthy young herdsmen in corduroy rags, 
the herdsman's daughter paddling about with bare feet, a stout black- 
eyed wench with her gown over her head and a red petticoat not quite 
so good as new, the two boatmen, a badger just killed and turned 
inside out, the gentlemen, some hens cackhng and flapping about 
among the rafters, a calf in a corner cropping green meat and occa- 
sionally visited by the cow her mamma, formed the society of the 
place. It was rather a strange picture ; but as for about two hours we 
sat there, and maintained an almost unbroken silence, and as there 
was no other amusement but to look at the rain, I began, after the 
enthusiasm of the first half-hour, to think that after all London was 
a bearable place, and that for want of a turf-fire and a bench in 
Connemara, one might put up with a sofa and a newspaper in Pall 
Mall. 

This, however, is according to tastes ; and I must say that Mr. 
Marcus betrayed a most bitter contempt for all cockney tastes, awk- 
wardness, and ignorance : and very right too. The night, on our 
return home, all of a sudden cleared ; but though the fishermen, much 
to my disgust — at the expression of which, however, the rascals only 
laughed — persisted in making more casts for trout, and trying back in 
the dark upon the spots which we had visited in the morning, it ap- 
peared the fish had been frightened off by the rain ; and the sportsmen 
met with such indifferent success that at about ten o'clock we found 
ourselves at Ballinahinch. Dinner was served at eleven ; and, I 
believe, there was some whisky-punch afterwards, recommended 
medicinally and to prevent the ill effects of the wetting : but that is 
neither here nor there. 

The next day the petty sessions were to be held at Roundstone, a 
little town which has lately sprung up near the noble bay of that name. 
I was glad to see some specimens of Connemara litigation, as also to 
behold at least one thousand beautiful views that lie on the five miles 
of road between the town and Ballinahinch. Rivers and rocks, 
mountains and sea, green plains and bright skies, how (for the 
hundred-and-fiftieth time) can pen-and-ink set you down.' But if 
Berghem could have seen those blue mountains, and Karel Dujardin 
could have copied some of these green, airy plains, with their brilliant 
little coloured groups of peasants, beggars, horsemen, many an Eng- 
lishman would know Connemara upon canvas as he does Italy or 
Flanders now. 



i 



ROUNDSTONE, 



205 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

ROUNDSTONE PETTY SESSIONS. 



HE temple of august The- 
mis," as a Frenchman would 
call the sessions-room at 
Roundstone, is an apart- 
ment of some twelve feet 
square, with a deal table 
and a couple of chairs for 
the accommodation of the 
magistrates, and a Testa- 
ment with a paper cross 
pasted on it to be kissed by 
the witnesses and com- 
plainants who frequent the 
court. The law-papers, 
warrants, &c. are kept on 
the sessions-clerk's bed in 
an adjoining apartment, 
which commands a fine 
view of the court-yard — where there is a stack of turf, a pig, and a 
shed beneath which the magistrates' horses were sheltered during the 
sitting. The sessions-clerk is a gentleman " having," as the phrase is 
here, both the English and Irish languages, and interpreting for the 
benefit of the worshipful bench. 

And if the cockney reader supposes that in this remote country 
spot, so wild, so beautiful, so distant from the hum and vice of cities, 
quarrelling is not, and litigation never shows her snaky head, he is 
very much mistaken. From what I saw, I would recommend any 
ingenious young attorney whose merits are not appreciated in the 
metropolis, to make an attempt upon the village of Roundstone ; 
where as yet, I believe, there is no solicitor, and where an immense 
and increasing practice might speedily be secured. Mr. O'Connell, 
who is always crying out " Justice for Ireland," finds strong supporters 




2o6 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



among the Roundstonians, whose love of justice for themselves is 
inordinate. I took down the plots of the first five httle litigious 
dramas which were played before Mr. Martin and the stipendiary 
magistrate. 

Case I. — A boy summoned a young man for beating him so severely 
that he kept his bed for a week, thereby breaking an engagement with 
his master, and losing a quarter's wages. 

The defendant stated, in reply, that the plaintiff was engaged— in 




a field through which defendant passed with another person — setting 
two little boys to fight ; on which defendant took plaintiff by the collar 
and turned him out of the field. A witness who was present swore 
that defendant never struck plaintiff at all, nor kicked him, nor ill-used 
him, further than by pushing him out of the field. 

As to the loss of his quarter's wages, the plaintiff ingeniously proved 
that he had afterwards returned to his master, that he had worked out 
his time, and that he had in fact received already the greater part of 
his hire. Upon which the case was dismissed, the defendant quitting 
the court without a stain upon his honour. 

Case 2 was a most piteous and lamentable case of killing a cow. 



ROUNDSTONE PETTY SESSIONS. 



207 



The plaintiff stepped forward with many tears and much gesticulation 
to state the fact, and also to declare that she was in danger of her life 
from the defendant's family. 

It appeared on the evidence that a portion of the defendant's re- 
spectable family are at present undergoing the rewards which the law 
assigns to those who make mistakes in fields with regard to the 
ownership of sheep which sometimes graze there. The defendant's 
father, O'Damon, for having appropriated one of the fleecy bleaters of 
O'Meliboeus, was at present passed beyond sea to a country where wool, 




and consequently mutton, is so plentiful, that he will have the less 
temptation. Defendant's brothers tread the Ixionic wheel for the same 
offence. Plaintiff's son had been the informer in the case : hence the 
feud between the families, the threats on the part of the defendant, the 
murder of the innocent cow. 

But upon investigation of the business, it was discovered, and on 
the plaintiff's own testimony, that the cow had not been killed, nor 
even been injured ; but that the defendant had flung two stones at it, 
which miglit have inflicted great injury had they hit the animal with 
greater force in the eye or in any delicate place. 

Defendant admitted flinging the stones, but alleged as a reason 
that the cow was trespassing on his grounds ; which plaintiff did not 
seem inclined to deny. Case dismissed. — Defendant retires with un- 
blemished honour ; on which his mother steps forward, and lifting 
up her hands with tears and shrieks, calls upon God to witness that 



2o8 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

the defendant's own brother-in-law had sold to her husband the very 
sheep on account of which he had been transported. 

Not wishing probably to doubt the justice of the verdict of an 
Irish jury, the magistrate abruptly put an end to the lamentation and 
oaths of the injured woman by causing her to be sent out of court, and 
called the third cause on. 

This was a case of thrilling interest and a complicated nature, 
involving two actions, which ought each perhaps to have been gone 
into separately, but were taken together. In the first place Timothy 
Horgan brought an action against Patrick Dolan for breach of con- 
tract in not remaining with him for the whole of six months during 
which Dolan had agreed to serve Horgan. Then Dolan brought an 
action against Horgan for not paying him his wages for six months' 
labour done — the wages being two guineas. 

Horgan at once, and with much candour, withdrew his charge 
against Dolan, that the latter had not remained with him for six 
months : nor can I understand to this day why in the first place he 
swore to the charge, and why afterwards he withdrew it. But imme- 
diately advancing another charge against his late servant, he pleaded 
that he had given him a suit of clothes, which should be considered as 
a set-off against part of the money claimed. 

Now such a suit of clothes as poor Dolan had was never seen — 
I will not say merely on an English scarecrow, but on an Irish 
beggar. Strips of rags fell over the honest fellow's great brawny 
chest, and the covering on his big brown legs hung on by a wonder. 
He held out his arms with a grim smile, and told his worship to look 
at the clothes ! The argument was irresistible : Horgan was ordered 
to pay forthwith. He ought to have been made to pay another guinea 
for clothing a fellow-creature in rags so abominable. 

And now came a case of trespass, in which there was nothing 
interesting but the attitude of the poor woman who trespassed, and 
who meekly acknowledged the fact. She stated, however, that she 
only got over the wall as a short cut home ; but the wall was eight 
feet high, with a ditch too ; and I fear there were cabbages or potatoes 
in the inclosure. They fined her a sixpence, and she could not pay 
it, and went to gaol for three days— where she and her baby at any 
rate will get a meal. 

Last on the list which I took down came a man who will make 
the fortune of the London attorney that I hope is on his way hither : 
a rather old, curly-headed man, with a sly smile perpetually lying on 
his face (the reader may give whatever interpretation he please to the 



JUSTICE FOR IRELAND. 



209 



"lying"). He comes before the court almost every fortnight, they 
say, with a complaint of one kind or other. His present charge was 
against a man for breaking into his court-yard, and wishing to take 
possession of the same. It appeared that he, the defendant, and 
another lived in a row of houses : the plaintiff's house was, however, 
first built ; and as his agreement specified that the plot of ground 
behind his house should be his likewise, he chose to imagine that 
the plot of ground behind all the three houses was his, and built his 




turf-stack against his neighbour's window. The magistrates of course 
pronounced against this ingenious discoverer of Avrongs, and he left 
the court still smihng and twisting round his little wicked eyes, and 
declaring solemnly that he would put in an appale. If one could 
have purchased a kicking at a moderate price off that fellow's back, 
it would have been a pleasant little piece of self-indulgence, and 
I confess I longed to ask him the price of the article. 

And so, after a few more such great cases, the court rose, and I 
had leisure to make moral reflections, if so minded : sighing to 
think that cruelty and falsehood, selfishness and rapacity, dwell not 
in crowds alone, but flourish all the world over — sweet flowers of 
human nature, they bloom in all climates and seasons, and are 
just as much at home in a hot-house in Thavies' Inn as on a lone 
mountain or a rocky sea-coast in Ireland, where never a tree will 
grow ! * 



210 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

We walked along this coast, after the judicial proceedings were 
over, to see the country, and the new road that the Board of Works 
rs forming. Such a wilderness of rocks I never saw ! The district for 
miles is covered with huge stones, shining white in patches of green, 
with the Binabola on one side of the spectator, and the Atlantic 
running in and out of a thousand little bays on the other. The 
country is very hilly, or wavy rather, being a sort of ocean petrified ; 
and the engineers have hard work with these numerous abrupt little 
ascents and descents, which they equahze as best they may — by 
blasting, cutting, fiUing cavities, and leveUing eminences. Some 
hundreds of men were employed at this work, busy with their 
hand-barrows, their picking and boring. Their pay is eighteenpence 
a day. 

There is little to see in the town of Roundstone, except a Presby- 
terian chapel in process of erection— that seems big enough to accom- 
modate the Presbyterians of the county— and a sort of lay convent, 
being a community of brothers of the third order of Saint Francis. 
They are all artisans and workmen, taking no vows, but living 
together in common, and undergoing a certain religious regimen. 
Their work is said to be very good, and all are employed upon some 
labour or other. On the front of this unpretending little dwelling is an 
inscription with a great deal of pretence, stating that the establishment 
was founded with the approbation of " His Grace the Most Reverend 
the Lord Archbishop of Tuam." 

The Most Reverend Dr. MacHale is a clergyman of great learning, 
talents, and honesty, but his Grace the Lord Archbishop of Tuam 
strikes me as being no better than a mountebank ; and some day I 
hope even his own party will laugh this humbug down. It is bad 

enough to be awed by big titles at all ; but to respect sham ones ! 

O stars and garters ! We shall have his Grace the Lord Chief Rabbi 
next, or his Lordship the Arch-Imaum ! 



A LONG TWELVE HOURS. 



211 




CHAPTER XIX. 

CLIFDEN TO WESTPORT. 

LEAVING Ballinahinch 
(with sincere regret, as 
any lonely tourist may 
imagine, who is called 
upon to quit the hospit- 
able friendliness of such 
a place and society), my 
way lay back to Clifden 
again, and thence through 
the Joyce country, by the 
Killery mountains, to 
Westport in Mayo. The 

_______ _ _ _ ____ road, amounting in all to 

"' •" " four-and-forty Irish miles, 

is performed in cars, in different periods of time, according to your 
horse and your luck. Sometimes, both being bad, the traveller is two 
days on the road ; sometimes a dozen hours will suffice for the journey 
— which was the case with me, though I confess to having found the 
twelve hours long enough. After leaving Clifden, the friendly look of 
the country seemed to vanish ; and though picturesque enough, was a 
thought too wild and dismal for eyes accustomed to admire a hop- 
garden in Kent, or a view of rich meadows in Surrey, with a clump of 
trees and a comfortable village spire. " Inglis," the Guide-book says, 
" compares the scenes to the Norwegian Fiords." Well, the Norwe- 
gian Fiords must, in this case, be very dismal sights ! and I own that 
the wildness of Hampstead Heath (with the imposing walls of "Jack 
Straw's Castle " rising stern in the midst of the green wilderness) is 
more to my taste than the general views of yesterday. 

We skirted by lake after lake, lying lonely in the midst of lonely 
boglands, or bathing the sides of mountains robed in sombre rifle 
green. Two or three men, and as many huts, you see in the course 

p 2 



212 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK, 

of each mile perhaps, as toiling up the bleak hills, or jingling more 
rapidly down them, you pass through this sad region. In the midst 
of the wilderness a chapel stands here and there, sohtary, on the hill- 
side ; or a ruinous, useless school-house, its pale walls contrasting 
with the general surrounding hue of sombre purple and green. But 
' though the country looks more dismal than Connemara, it is clearly 
more fertile : we passed miles of ground that evidently wanted but 
little cultivation to make them profitable ; and along the mountain- 
sides, in many places, and over a great extent of Mr. Blake's country 
especially, the hills were covered with a thick natural plantation, that 
may yield a little brushwood now, but might in fifty years' time bring 
thousands of pounds of revenue to the descendants of the Blakes. 
This spectacle of a country going to waste is enough to make the 
cheerfullest landscape look dismal : it gives this wild district a woful 
look indeed. The names of the lakes by which we came I noted 
down in a pocket-book as we passed along ; but the names were Irish, 
the car was rattling, and the only name readable in the catalogue is 
Letterfrack. 

The little hamlet of Leenane is at twenty miles' distance from 
Clifden ; and to arrive at it, you skirt the mountain along one side of 
a vast pass, through which the ocean runs from Killery Bay, sepa- 
rating the mountains of Mayo from the mountains of Galway. 
Nothing can be more grand and gloomy than this pass ; and as for 
the character of the scenery, it must, as the Guide-book says, " be 
seen to be understood." Meanwhile, let the reader imagine huge 
dark mountains in their accustomed livery of purple and green, a dull 
grey sky above them, an estuary silver-bright below : in the water 
lies a fisherman's boat or two ; a pair of seagulls undulating with the 
little waves of the water ; a pair of curlews wheeling overhead and 
piping on the wing; and on the hill-side a jingling car, with a cockney 
in it, oppressed by and yet admiring all these things. Many a 
sketcher and tourist, as I found, has visited this picturesque spot : for 
the hostess of the inn had stories of English and American painters^ 
and of illustrious book-writers, too, travelling in the service of our 
Lords of Paternoster Row. 

The landlord's son of Clifden, a very intelligent young fellow, was 
here exchanged for a new carman in the person of a raw Irisher of 
twenty years of age, "having" little English, and dressed in that very- 
pair of pantaloons which Humphrey Clinker was compelled to cast off 
some years since on account of the offence which they gave to Mrs. 
Tabitha Bramble. This fellow, emerging from among the boats, 



LEENANE. 



213 



went off to a field to seek for the black horse, which the landlady 
assured me was quite fresh and had not been out all day, and would 
carry me to Westport in three hours. Meanwhile I was lodged in a 
neat little parlour, surveying the Mayo side of the water, with some 
cultivated fields and a show of a village at the spot where the estuary 
ends, and above them lodges and fine dark plantations climbing over 
the dark hills that lead to Lord Sligo's seat of Delphi. Presently, with 
a curtsey, came a young woman who sold worsted socks at a shilling a 
pair, and whose portrait is here given. 




It required no small pains to entice this rustic beauty to stand 
while a sketch should be made of her. Nor did any compliments or 
cajolements, on my part or the landlady's, bring about the matter : it 
was not until money was offered that the lovely creature consented. 
I offered (such is the ardour of the real artist) either to give her six- 
pence, or to purchase two pairs of her socks, if she would stand still 
for five minutes. On which she said she would prefer seUing the socks. 
Then she stood still for a moment in the corner of the room ; then she 
turned her face towards the corner and the other part of her person 
towards the artist, and exclaimed in that attitude, "I must have a 
shilling more." Then I told her to go to the deuce. Then she made 



214 THE IRI^H SKETCH BOOK. 

.1 proposition, involving the stockings and sixpence, which was similarly 
rejected ; and, finally, the above splendid design was completed at the 
price first stated. 

However, as we went off, this timid little dove barred the door 
for a moment, and said that " I ought to give her another shilling ; 
that a gentleman would give her another shilling," and so on. She 
might have trod the London streets for ten years and not have been 
more impudent and more greedy. 

By this time the famous fresh horse was produced, and the driver, 
by means of a wraprascal, had covered a great part of the rags of his 
lower garment. He carried a whip and a stick, the former lying across 
his knees ornamentally, the latter being for service ; and as his feet were 
directly under the horse's tail, he had full command of the brute's back, 
and belaboured it for six hours without ceasing. 

What little English the fellow knew he uttered with a howl, roaring 
into my ear answers — which, for the most part, were wrong — to various 
questions put to him. The lad's voice was so hideous, that I asked 
him if he could sing ; on which forthwith he began yelling a most 
horrible Irish ditty — of which he told me the title, that I have forgotten. 
He sang three stanzas, certainly keeping a kind of tune, and the latter 
lines of each verse were in rhyme ; but when I asked him the meaning 
of the song, he only roared out its Irish title. 

On questioning the driver further, it turned out that the horse, 
warranted fresh, had already performed a journey of eighteen miles 
that morning, and the consequence was that I had full leisure to 
survey the country through which we passed. There were more lakes, 
more mountains, more bog, and an excellent road through this lonely 
district, though few only of the human race enlivened it. At ten miles 
from Leenane, we stopped at a road-side hut, where the driver pulled 
out a bag of oats, and borrowing an iron pot from the good people, 
half filled it with corn, which the poor tired, galled, bewhipped 
black horse began eagerly to devour. The young charioteer himself 
hinted very broadly his desire for a glass of whisky, which was the 
only kind of refreshment that this remote house of entertainment 
supplied. 

In the various cabins I have entered, I have found talking a vain 
matter ; the people are suspicious of the stranger within their wretched 
gates, and are shy, sly, and silent. I have, commonly, only been 
able to get half-answers in reply to my questions, given in a manner 
that seemed plainly to intimate that the visit was unwelcome. In 
this rude hostel, however, the landlord was a little less reserved, 



THE BAITING HOUSE. 215 

oftered a seat at the turf-fire, where a painter might have had a good 
subject for his skill. There was no chimney, but a hole in the roof, 
up which a small portion of the smoke ascended (the rest preferring 
an egress by the door, or else to remain in the apartment altogether) ; 
and this light from above lighted up as rude a set of figures as ever 
were seen. There were two brown women with black eyes and 
locks, the one knitting stockings on the floor, the other " racking " 
(with that natural comb which five horny fingers supply) the elf-locks 
of a dirty urchin between her knees. An idle fellow was smoking 
his pipe by the fire ; and by his side sat a stranger, who had been 
made welcome to the shelter of the place — a sickly, well-looking man, 
whom I mistook for a deserter at first, for he had evidently been a 
soldier. 

But there was nothing so romantic as desertion in his history. He 
had been in the Dragoons, but his mother had purchased his dis- 
charge : he was married, and had lived comfortably in Cork for some 
time, in the glass-blowing business. Trade failing at Cork, he had 
gone to Belfast to seek for work. There was no w'ork at Belfast ; and 
he was so far on his road home again : sick, without a penny in the 
world, a hundred and fifty miles to travel, and a starving wife and 
children to receive him at his journey's end. He had been thrown 
off a caravan that day, and had almost broken his back in the fall. 
Here was a cheering story ! I wonder where he is now : how far has 
the poor starving lonely man advanced over that weary desolate 
road, that in good health, and with a horse to carry me, I thought it 
a penalty to cross ? What would one do under such circumstances, 
with solitude and hunger for present company, despair and starvation 
at the end of the vista .? There are a score of lonely lakes along the 
road which he has to pass : would it be well to stop at one of them, 
and fling into it the wretched load of cares which that poor broken 
back has to carry ? Would the world he would light on then be worse 
for him than that he is pining in now.^ Heaven help us ! and on 
this very day, throughout the three kingdoms, there are a million such 
stories to be told ! Who dare doubt of heaven after that .? of a place 
where there is at last a welcome to the heart-stricken prodigal and a 
happy home to the wretched ? 

The crumbs of oats which fell from the mouth of the feasting Dives 
of a horse were battled for outside the door by a dozen Lazaruses in 
the shape of fowls ; and a lanky young pig, who had been grunting in 
an old chest in the cabin, or in a miserable recess of huddled rags and 
straw which formed the couch of the family, presently came out and 



2i6 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

drove the poultr>' away, picking up. with great accuracy, the solitary 
grains lying about, and more than once trying to shove his snout into 
the corn-pot, and share with the wretched old galled horse. Whether 
it was that he was refreshed by his meal, or that the car-boy was in- 
vigorated by his glass of whisky, or inflamed by the sight of eighteen- 
pence — which munificent sum was tendered to the soldier — I don't 
know ; but the remaining eight miles of the journey were got over in 
much quicker time, although the road was exceedingly bad and hilly 
for the greatest part of the way to Westport. However, by running up 
the hills at the pony's side, the animal, fired with emulation, trotted up 
them too— descending them with the proverbial surefootedness of his 
race, the car and he bouncing over the rocks and stones at the rate of 
at least four Irish miles an hour. 

At about five miles from Westport the cultivation becam«e much 
more frequent. There were plantations upon the hills, yellow corn 
and potatoes in plenty in the fields, and houses thickly scattered. We 
had the satisfaction, too, of knowing that future tourists will have an 
excellent road to travel over in this district : for by the side of the old 
road, which runs up and down a hundred little rocky steeps, according 
to the ancient plan, you see a new one running for several miles,— the 
latter way being conducted, not over the hills, but around them, and, 
considering the circumstances of the country, extremely broad and 
even. The car-boy presently yelled out " Reek, Reek \ " with a shriek 
perfectly appalling. This howl was to signify that we were in sight of 
that famous conical mountain so named, and from which St. Patrick, 
after inveigling thither all the venomous reptiles in Ireland, pre- 
cipitated the whole noisome race into Clew Bay. .The road also for 
several miles was covered with people, who were flocking in hundreds 
from Westport market, in cars and carts, on horseback single and 
double, and on foot. 

And presently, from an eminence, I caught sight not only of a fine 
view, but of the most beautiful view I ever saw in the world, I think ; 
and to enjoy the splendour of which I would travel a hundred miles in 
that car with that very horse and driver. The sun was just about to 
set, and the country round about and to the east was almost in twi- 
light. The mountains were tumbled about in a thousand fantastic 
ways, and swarming with people. Trees, corn-fields, cottages, made 
the scene indescribably cheerful ; noble woods stretched towards the 
sea, and abutting on them, between two highlands, lay the smoking 
town. Hard by was a large Gothic building — it is but a poor-house ; 
but it looked like a grand castle in the grey evening. But the Bay— 



CLEW BAY. 217 

and the Reek which sweeps down to the sea — and a hundred islands 
in it, were dressed up in gold and purple and crimson, with the whole 
cloudy west in a flame. Wonderful, wonderful ! . . The valleys in 
the road to Leenane have lost all glimpses of the sun ere this ; and I 
suppose there is not a soul to be seen in the black landscape, or by the 
shores of the ghastly lakes, where the poor glass-blower from the 
whisky-shop is faintly travelling now. 



2l8 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK, 



CHAPTER XX. 



WESTPORT. 



ATURE has done much for 
this pretty town of West- 
port ; and after Nature, the 
traveller ought to be thank- 
ful to Lord Sligo, who has 
done a great deal too. In 
the first place, he has 
established one of the pret- 
tiest, comfortablest inns in 
Ireland, in the best part of 
his little town, stocking the 
cellars with good wines, fill- 
ing the house with neat 
furniture, and lending, it is 
said, the whole to a land- 
lord gratis, on condition that 
he should keep the house 
warm, and furnish the 
larder, and entertain the 
traveller. Secondly, Lord 
Sligo has given up, for the use of the townspeople, a beautiful little 
pleasure-ground about his house. " You may depand upon it," said a 
Scotchman at the inn, " that they've right of pathway through the 
groonds, and that the marquess couldn't shut them oot." Which is a 
pretty fair specimen of charity in this world — this kind world, that is 
always ready to encourage and applaud good actions, and find good 
motives for the same. I wonder how much would induce that Scotch- 
man to allow poor people to walk in his park, if he had one ! 

In the midst of this pleasure-ground, and surrounded by a thousand 
fine trees, dressed up in all sorts of verdure, stands a pretty little 
church ; paths through the wood lead pleasantly down to the bay ; 
andj as we walked down to it on the day after our arrival, one of the 




WESTPOKr. 219 

green fields was suddenly black with rooks, making a huge cawing and 
clanging as they settled down to feed. The house, a handsome 
massive structure, must command noble views of the bay, over which 
all the colours of Titian were spread as the sun set behind its purple 
islands. 

Printer's ink will not give these wonderful hues ; and the reader 
will make his picture at his leisure. That conical mountain to the 
left is Croaghpatrick : it is clothed in the most magnificent violet- 
colour, and a couple of round clouds were exploding as it were from 
the summit, that part of them towards the sea lighted up with the 
most delicate gold and rose colour. In the centre is the Clare island, 
of which the edges were bright cobalt, whilst the middle was lighted 
up with a brilliant scarlet tinge, such as I would have laughed at in a 
picture, never having seen in nature before, but looked at now with 
wonder and pleasure until the hue disappeared as the sun went away. 
The islands in the bay (which was of a gold colour) looked like so 
many dolphins and whales basking there. The rich park-woods 
stretched down to the shore ; and the immediate foreground consisted 
of a yellow corn-field, whereon stood innumerable shocks of corn, 
casting immense long purple shadows over the stubble. The farmer, 
with some little ones about him, was superintending his reapers ; and 
I heard him say to a little girl, " Norey, I love you the best of all my 
children ! " Presently, one of the reapers coming up, says, " It's 
always the custom in these parts to ask strange gentlemen to give 
something to drink the first day of reaping ; and we'd like to drink 
your honour's health in a bowl of coffee." O fortuiiatos nimmm f 
The cockney takes out sixpence, and thinks that he never passed such 
a pleasant half-hour in all his life as in that corn-field, looking at that 
wonderful bay. 

A car which I had ordered presently joined me from the town , 
and going down a green lane very like England, and across a cause- 
way near a building where the carman proposed to show me "me 
lard's caffin that he brought from Rome, and a mighty big caffin 
entirely," we came close upon the water and the port. There was a 
long handsome pier (which, no doubt, remains at this present minute), 
and one solitary cutter lying alongside it ; which may or may not be 
there now. There were about three boats lying near the cutter, and 
six sailors, with long shadows, lolling about the pier.- As for the ware- 
houses, they are enormous ; and might accommodate, I should think, 
not only the trade of Westport, but of Manchester too. There are 
huge streets of these houses, ten storeys high, with cranes, owners 



220 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

names, &c., marked Wine Stores, Flour Stores, Bonded Tobacco 
Warehouses, and so forth. The six sailors that were singing on the 
pier no doubt are each admirals of as many fleets of a hundred sail 
that bring wines and tobacco from all quarters of the world to fill 
these enormous warehouses. These dismal mausoleums, as vast as 
pyramids, are the places where the dead trade of Westport lies buried 
— a trade that, in its lifetime, probably was about as big as a mouse. 
Nor is this the first nor the hundredth place to be seen in this country, 
which sanguine builders have erected to accommodate an imaginary 
commerce. Mill-owners over-mill themselves, merchants over-ware- 
house themselves, squires over-castle themselves, little tradesmen 
about Dublin and the cities over-villa and over-gig themselves, and we 
hear sad tales about hereditary bondage and the accursed tyranny of 
England. 

Passing out of this dreary, pseudo-com.mercial port, the road lay 
along the beautiful shores of Clow Bay, adorned with many a rickety 
villa and pleasure-house, from the cracked windows of which may be 
seen one of the noblest views in the world. One of the villas the 
guide pointed out with peculiar exultation : it is called by a grand 
name — Waterloo Park, and has a lodge, and a gate, and a field of a 
couple of acres, and belongs to a young gentleman who, being able 
to write Waterloo Park on his card, succeeded in carrying off a young 
London heiress with a hundred thousand pounds. The young couple 
had just arrived, and one of them must have been rather astonished, 
no doubt, at the "park." But what will not love do? With love 
and a hundred thousand pounds, a cottage may be made to look like 
a castle, and a park of two acres may be brought to extend for a mile. 
The night began now to fall, wrapping up in a sober grey livery the 
bay and mountains, which had just been so gorgeous in sunset ; and 
we turned our backs presently upon the bay, and the villas with the 
cracked windows, and scaling a road of perpetual ups and downs, 
went back to Westport. On the way was a pretty cemetery, lying on 
each side of the road, with a ruined chapel for the ornament of one 
division, a holy well for the other. In the holy well lives a sacred 
trout, whom sick people come to consult, and who operates great 
cures in the neighbourhood. If the patient sees the trout floating on 
his back, he dies; if on his belly, he lives; or vice vej'sd. The little 
spot is old, ivy-grown, and picturesque, and I can't fancy a better 
place for a pilgrim to kneel and say his beads at. 

But considering the whole country goes to mass, and that the 
priests can govern it as they will, teaching what shall be believed and 



A SERMON OF SERMONS. 221 

what shall be not credited, would it not be well for their reverences, in 
the year eighteen hundred and forty-two, to discourage these absurd 
lies and superstitions, and teach some simple truths to their flock ? 
Leave such figments to magazine-writers and ballad-makers ; but, 
corbleu ! it makes one indignant to think that people in the United 
Kingdom, where a press is at work and good sense is abroad, and 
clergymen are eager to educate the people, should countenance such 
savage superstitions and silly, grovelling heathenisms. 

The chapel is before the inn where I resided, and on Sunday, 
from a very early hour, the side of the street was thronged with 
worshippers, who came to attend the various services. Nor are the 
Catholics the only devout people of this remote district. There is a 
large Presbyterian church very well attended, as was the Established 
Church service in the pretty church in the park. There was no 
organ, but the clerk and a choir of children sang hymns sweetly and 
truly; and a charity sermon being preached for the benefit of the 
diocesan schools, I saw many pound-notes in the plate, showing 
that the Protestants here were as ardent as their Roman Catholic 
brethren. The sermon was extempore, as usual, according to the 
prevailing taste here. The preacher by putting aside his sermon- 
book may gain in warmth, which we don't want, but lose in reason, 
which we do. If I were Defender of the Faith, I would issue an 
order to all priests and deacons to take to the book again ; weighing 
well, before they uttered it, every word they proposed to say upon so 
great a subject as that of religion ; and mistrusting that dangerous 
facility given by active jaws and a hot imagination. Reverend 
divines have adopted this habit, and keep us for an hour listening to 
what might well be told in ten minutes. They are wondrously fluent, 
considering all things ; and though I have heard many a sentence 
begun whereof the speaker did not evidently know the conclusion, 
yet, somehow or other, he has always managed to get through the 
paragraph without any hiatus, except perhaps in the sense. And as 
far as I can remark, it is not calm, plain, downright preachers who 
preserve the extemporaneous system for the most part, but pompous 
orators, indulging in all the cheap graces of rhetoric — exaggerating 
words and feelings to make effect, and dealing in pious caricature. 
Church-goers become excited by this loud talk and captivating 
manner, and can't go back afterwards to a sober discourse read out 
of a grave old sermon-book, appealing to the reason and the gentle 
feelings, instead of to the passions and the imagination. Beware of 
too much talk, O parsons ! If a man is to give an account of every 



222 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

idle word he utters, for what a number of such loud nothings, windy 
emphatic tropes and metaphors, spoken, not for God's glory, but the 
preacher's, will many a cushion-thumper have to answer I And this 
rebuke may properly find a place here, because the clergyman by 
whose discourse it was elicited is not of the eloquent dramatic sort, 
but a gentleman, it is said, remarkable for old-fashioned learning and 
quiet habits, that do not seem to be to the taste of the many boisterous 
young clergy of the present day. 

The Catholic chapel was built before their graces the most reverend 
lord archbishops came into fashion. It is large and gloomy, with one 
or two attempts at ornament by way of pictures at the altars, and a 
good inscription warning the in-comer, in a few bold words, of the 
sacredness of the place he stands in. Bare feet bore away thousands 




of people who came to pray there : there were numbers of smart 
equipages for the richer Protestant congregation. Strolling about the 
town in the balmy summer evening, I heard the sweet tones of a hymn 
from the people in the Presbyterian praying-house. Indeed, the 
country is full of piety, and a warm, sincere, undoubting devotion. 

On week-days the street before the chapel is scarcely less crowded 
than on the Sabbath : but it is with women and children merely ; for 
a stream bordered with lime-trees runs pleasantly down the street, 
and hither come innumerable girls to wash, while the children make 
dirt-pies and look on. Wilkie was here some years since, and the 
place affords a great deal of amusement to the painter of character. 
Sketching, taut Men que 7nal, the bridge and the trees, and some of 
the nymphs engaged in the stream, the writer became an object of no 



SKETCHING. 223 

small attention ; and at least a score of dirty brats left their dirt-pies 
to look on, the bare-legged washing-girls grinning from the water. 

One, a regular rustic beauty, whose face and figure would have 
made the fortune of a frontispiece, seemed particularly amused and 
agaqantej and I walked round to get a drawing of her fresh jolly 
face : but directly I came near she pulled her gown over her head, 
and resolutely turned her back ; and, as that part of her person 
did not seem to differ in character from the backs of the rest of 
Europe, there is no need of taking its likeness. 



224 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

THE PATTERN AT CROAGHPATRICK. 







N the Pattern day, however, 
the washerwomen and 
children had all disappeared 
—nay, the stream, too, seemed 
to be gone out of town. There 
was a report current, also, 
that on the occasion of the 
Pattern, six hundred tee- 
totallers had sworn to revolt ; 
and I fear that it was the 
hope of witnessing this awful 
rebellion which induced me 
to stay a couple of days at 
Westport. The Pattern was 
commenced on the Sunday, 
and the priests going up to 
the mountain took care that 
there should be no sports nor dancing on that day ; but that the 
people should only content themselves with the performance of what 
are called religious duties. Religious duties ! Heaven help us ! If 
these reverend gentlemen were worshippers of Moloch or Baal, or 
any deity whose honour demanded bloodshed, and savage rites, and 
degradation, and torture, one might fancy them encouraging the 
people to the disgusting penances the poor things here perform. But 
it's too hard to think that in our days any priests of any religion should 
be found superintending such a hideous series of self-sacrifices as are, 
it appears, performed on this hill. 

A friend who ascended the hill brought down the following account 
of it. The ascent is a very steep and hard one, he says ; but it was 
performed in company of thousands of people who were making their 
way barefoot to the several " stations " upon the hill. 

" The first station consists of one heap of stones, round which 



THE PATTERN. 225 

they must walk seven times, casting a stone on the heap each time, 
and before and after every stone's throw saying a prayer. 

" The second station is on the top of the mountain. Here there 
is a great altar — a shapeless heap of stones. The poor wretches 
crawl on their knees into this place, say fifteen prayers, and after going 
round the entire top of the mountain fifteen times, say fifteen prayers 
again. 

"The third station is near the bottom of the mountain at the 
further side from Westport. It consists of three heaps. The penitents 
must go seven times round these collectively, and seven times after- 
wards round each individually, saying a prayer before and after each 
progress." 

My informant describes the people as coming away from this 
"frightful exhibition suffering severe pain, wounded and bleeding in 
the knees and feet, and some of the women shrieking with the pain 
of their wounds." Fancy thousands of these bent upon their work, 
and priests standing by to encourage them ! — For shame, for shame. 
If all the popes, cardinals, bishops, hermits, priests, and deacons 
that ever lived were to come forward and preach this as a truth — that 
to please God you must macerate your body, that the sight of your 
agonies is welcome to Him, and that your blood, groans, and degra- 
dation find favour in His eyes, I would not believe them. Better have 
over a company of Fakeers at once, and set the Suttee going; 

Of these tortures, however, I had not the fortune to witness a 
sight : for going towards the mountain for the first four miles, the 
only conveyance I could find was half the pony of an honest sailor, 
who said, when applied to, " I tell you what I do wid you : I give you 
a spell about." But, as it turned out we were going different ways, 
this help was but a small one. A car with a spare seat, however, 
(there were hundreds of others quite full, and scores of rattling 
country-carts covered with people, and thousands of bare legs trudg- 
ing along the road,)— a car with a spare seat passed by at two miles 
from the Pattern, and that just in time to get comfortably wet through 
on arriving there. The whole mountain was enveloped in mist ; and 
we could nowhere see thirty yards before us. The women walked 
forward, with their gowns over their heads ; the men sauntered on \w 
the rain, with the utmost indifference to it. The car presently came 
to a cottage, the court in front of which was black with two hundred 
horses, and where as many drivers were jangling and bawling ; and 
here we were told to descend. You had to go over a wall and across 
a brook, and behold the Pattern. 

Q 



226 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK, 



The pleasures of the poor people— for after the business on the 
mountain came the dancing and love-making at its foot— were wofully 
spoiled by the rain, which rendered dancing on the gra^s impossible ; 
nor were the tents big enough for that exercise. Indeed, the whole 
sight was as dismal and half-savage a one as I have seen. There 
may have been fifty of these tents squatted round a plain of the most 
brilliant green grass, behind which the mist-curtains seemed to rise 
immediately ; for you could not even see the mountain-side beyond 
them. Here was a great crowd of men and women, all ugly, as the 
fortune of the day would have it (for the sagacious reader has, no 
doubt, remarked that there are ugly and pretty days in life). Stalls 
were spread about, whereof the owners were shrieking out the praises 




of their wares— great coarse damp-looking bannocks of bread for 
the most part, or, mayhap, a dirty collection of pigsfeet and such 
refreshments. Several of the booths professed to belong to " con- 
fectioners " from Westport or Castlebar, the confectionery consisting 
of huge biscuits and doubtful-looking ginger-beer — ginger-ale or 
gingeretta it is called in this country, by a fanciful people who love 
the finest titles. Add to these, caldrons containing water for " tay " 
at the doors of the booths, other pots full of masses of pale legs of 
mutton (the owner " prodding," every now and then, for a bit, and 
holding it up and asking the passenger to buy). In the booths it 
was impossible to stand upright, or to see much, on account of 
smoke. Men and women were crowded in these rude tents, huddled 
together, and disappearing in the darkness. Owners came bustling 



RETURNING FROM THE PATTERN. 227 

out to replenish the empty water-jugs : and landladies stood outside 
in the rain calling strenuously upon all passers-by to enter. There 
(p. 226) is a design taken from one of the booths, presenting in- 
geniously an outside and an inside view of the same place — an 
artifice seldom practised in pictures. 

Meanwhile, high up on the invisible mountain, the people were 
dragging their bleeding knees from altar to altar, flinging stones, 
and muttering some endless litanies, with the priests standing by. 
I think I was not sorry that the rain, and the care of my precious 
health, prevented me from mounting a severe hill to witness a sight 
that could only have caused one to be shocked and ashamed that 
servants of God should encourage it. The road home was very 
pleasant ; everybody was wet through, but everybody was happy, and 
by some miracle we were seven on the car. There was the honest 
Englishman in the military cap, who sang '' The sea, the hopen sea's 
my 'ome," although not any one of the company called upon him for 
that air. Then the music was taken up by a good-natured lass from 
Castlebar ; then the Englishman again, " With burnished brand and 
musketoon ; " and there was no end of pushing, pinching, squeezing, 
and laughing. The Englishman, especially, had a favourite yell, with 
which he saluted and astonished all cottagers, passengers, cars, that 
we met or overtook. Presently came prancing by two dandies, who 
were especially frightened by the noise. " Thim's two tailors from 
Westport," said the carman, grinning with all his might. " Come, 
gat out of the way there, gat along ! " piped a small English voice 
from above somewhere. I looked up, and saw a little creature 
perched on the top of a tandem, which he was driving with the most 
knowing air — a dreadful young hero, with a white hat, and a white 
face, and a blue bird's-eye neckcloth. He was five feet high, if an 
inch, an ensign, and sixteen ; and it was a great comfort to think, in 
case of danger or riot, that one of his years and personal strength 
was at hand to give help. 

" Thim's the afticers," said the carman, as the tandem wheeled by, 
a small groom quivering on behind — and the carman spoke with the 
greatest respect this time. Two days before, on arriving at Westport, 
I had seen the same equipage at the door of the inn— where for a 
moment there happened to be no waiter to receive me. So, shoulder- 
ing a carpet-bag, I walked into the inn-hall, and asked a gentleman 
standing there where was the coffee-room } It was the military 
tandem-driving youth, who with much grace looked up in my face, 
and said calmly, '■^ I dawiit knaw." I believe the little creature had 

Q2 



228 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

just been dining in the very room— and so present my best compli- 
ments to him. 

The Guide-book will inform the traveller of many a beautiful spot 
which lies in the neighbourhood of Westport, and which I had not 
the time to visit ; but I must not take leave of the excellent little inn 
without speaking once more of its extreme comfort ; nor of the place 
itself, without another parting word regarding its beauty. It forms an 
event in one's life to have seen that place, so beautiful is it, and so 
unlike all other beauties that I know of. Were such beauties lying 
upon English shores it would be a world's wonder : perhaps, if it were 
on the Mediterranean, or the Baltic, English travellers would flock to 
it by hundreds ; why not come and see it in Ireland ? Remote as the 
spot is, Westport is only two days' journey from London now, and 
lies in a country far more strange to most travellers than France or 
Germany can be. 



IRISH IMPROVIDENCE. 



229 



CHAPTER XXII. 

FROM WESTPORT TO BALLINASLOE. 



HE mail-coach took us next 
day by Castlebar and Tuam 
to Ballinasloe, a journey of 
near eighty miles. The coun- 
try is interspersed with innu- 
merable seats belonging to 
the Blakes, the Browns, and 
the Lynches ; and we passed 
many large domains belong- 
ing to bankrupt lords and 
fugitive squires, with fine 
lodges adorned with moss and 
battered windows, and parks 
where, if the grass was grow- 
ing on the roads, on the other 
hand the trees had been 
weeded out of the grass. 
About these seats and their 
owners the guard — an honest, shrewd fellow — had all the gossip to 
telh The jolly guard himself was a ruin, it turned out : he told me 
his grandfather was a man of large property ; his father, he said, 
kept a pack of hounds, and had spent everything by the time he, the 
guard, was sixteen : so the lad made interest to get a mail-car to 
drive, whence he had been promoted to the guard's seat, and now for 
forty years had occupied it, travelhng eighty miles, and earning seven- 
and-twopence every day of his life. He had been once ill, he said, 
for three days ; and if a man may be judged by ten hours' talk with 
him, there were few more shrewd, resolute, simple-minded men to be 
found on the outside of any coaches or the inside of any houses in 
Ireland. 

During the first five-and-twenty miles of the journey, — for the day 




230 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

was very sunny and bright, — Croaghpatrick kept us company ; and, 
seated with your back to the horses, you could see, " on the left, that 
vast aggregation of mountains which stretches southwards to the Bay 
ofGalway; on the right, that gigantic assemblage which sweeps in 
circular outline northward to Killule." Somewhere amongst those 
hills the great John Tuam was born, whose mansion and cathedral 
are to be seen in Tuam town, but whose fame is spread everywhere. 
To arrive at Castlebar, we go over the undulating valley which lies 
between the mountains of Joyce country and Erris ; and the first 
object which you see on entering the town is a stately Gothic castle 
that stands at a short distance from it. 

On the gate of the stately Gothic castle was written an inscription 
not very hospitable : " WITHOUT beware, within amend ; "—just 
beneath which is an iron crane of neat construction. The castle is 
the county gaol, and the iron crane is the gallows of the district. The 
town seems neat and lively : there is a fine church, a grand barracks 
(celebrated as the residence of the young fellow with the bird's-eye 
neckcloth), a club, and a Whig and Tory newspaper. The road 
hence to Tuam is very pretty and lively, from the number of country 
seats along the way, giving comfortable shelter to more B lakes, 
Browns, and Lynches. 

In the cottages, the inhabitants looked healthy and rosy in their 
rags, and the cots themselves in the sunshine almost comfortable. 
After a couple of months in the country, the stranger's eye grows 
somewhat accustomed to the rags : they do not frighten him as at 
first ; the people who wear them look for the most part healthy 
enough : especially the small children — those who can scarcely totter, 
and are sitting shading their eyes at the door, and leaving the 
unfinished dirt-pie to shout as the coach passes by— are as healthy a 
looking race as one will often see. Nor can any one pass through the 
land without being touched by the extreme love of children among the 
people : they swarm everywhere, and the whole country rings with 
cries of affection towards the children, with the songs of young ragged 
nurses dandling babies on their knees, and warnings of mothers to 
Patsey to come out of the mud, or Norey to get off the pig's back. 

At Tuam the coach stopped exactly for fourteen minutes and a 
half, during which time those who wished might dine : but instead, I 
had the pleasure of inspecting a very mouldy, dirty town, and made 
my way to the Catholic cathedral — a very handsome edifice indeed ; 
handsome without and within, and of the Gothic sort. Over the 
door is a huge coat of arms surmounted by a cardinal's hat — the arms 



IRISH LOVE OF TITLES, 231 

of the see, no doubt, quartered with John Tuam's own patrimonial 
coat ; and that was a frieze coat, from all accounts, passably ragged 
at the elbows. Well, he must be a poor wag who could sneer at an 
old coat, because it was old and poor ; but if a man changes it for a 
tawdry gimcrack suit bedizened with twopenny tinsel, and struts 
about calling himself his grace and my lord, when may we laugh if 
not then ? There is something simple in the way in which these good 
people belord their clergymen, and respect titles real or sham. Take 
any Dublin paper, — a couple of columns of it are sure to be filled 
with movements of the small great men of the world. Accounts from 
Derrynane state that the '' Right Honourable the Lord Mayor is in 
good health — his lordship went out with his beagles yesterday ; " or 
" his Grace the Most Reverend the Lord Archbishop of Ballywhack, 
assisted by the Right Reverend the Lord Bishops of Trincomalee 
and Hippopotamus, assisted," &c. ; or " Colonel Tims, of Castle Tims, 
and lady, have quitted the ' Shelburne Hotel,' with a party for 
Kilballybathershins, where the aiigicst * party propose to enjoy a few 
days' shrimp-fishing," — and so on. Our people are not witty and keen 
of perceiving the ridiculous, like the Irish ; but the bluntness and 
honesty of the English have well nigh kicked the fashionable humbug 
down ; and except perhaps among footmen and about Baker Street, 
this curiosity about the aristocracy is wearing fast away. Have the 
Irish so much reason to respect their lords that they should so 
chronicle all their movements ; and not only admire real lords, but 
make sham ones of their own to admire them ? 

There is no object of special mark upon the road from Tuam to- 
Ballinasloe — the country being flat for the most part, and the noble 
Galway and Mayo mountains having disappeared at length — until yoii 
come to a glimpse of old England in the pretty village of Ahascragh.. 
An old oak-tree grows in the neat street, the houses are as trim and 
white as eye can desire, and about the church and the town are 
handsome plantations, forming on the whole such a picture of comfort 
and plenty as. is rarely to be seen in the part of Ireland I have 
traversed. All these wonders have been wrought by the activity of an 
excellent resident agent. There was a countryman on the coach 
deploring that, through family circumstances, this gentleman should 
have been dispossessed of his agency, and declaring that the village 
had already begun to deteriorate in consequence. The marks of such 
decay were not, however, visible — at least to a new comer ; and, being 

* This epithet is applied to the party of a Colonel somebody, in a Dublin 
paper. 



232 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

reminded of it, I indulged in many patriotic longings for England : as 
every Englishman does when he is travelling out of the country 
which he is always so wilhng to quit. 

That a place should instantly begin to deteriorate because a 
certain individual was removed from it — that cottagers should become 
thriftless, and houses dirty, and house-windows cracked, — all these are 
points which public economists may ruminate over, and can't fail to 
give the carelessest traveller much matter for painful reflection. How 
is it that the presence of one man more or less should affect a set of 
people come to years of manhood, and knowing that they have their 
duty to do ? Why should a man at Ahascragh let his home go to 
ruin, and stuff his windows with ragged breeches instead of glass, 
because Mr. Smith is agent in place of Mr. Jones ? Is he a child, that 
won't work unless the schoolmaster be at hand ? or are we to suppose, 
with the " Repealers," that the cause of all this degradation and misery 
is the intolerable tyranny of the sister country, and the pain which 
poor Ireland has been made to endure .? This is very well at the Corn 
Exchange, and among patriots after dinner ; but, after all, granting 
the grievance of the franchise (though it may not be unfair to presume 
that a man who has not strength of mind enough to mend his own 
breeches or his own windows will always be the tool of one party or 
another), there is no Inquisition set up in the country : the law tries 
to defend the people as much as they will allow ; the odious tithe has 
even been whisked off from their shoulders to the landlords' ; they 
may live pretty much as they like. Is it not too monstrous to howl 
about English tyranny and suffering Ireland, and call for a Stephen's 
Green Parliament to make the country quiet and the people indus- 
trious ? The people are not politically worse treated than their 
neighbours in England. The priests and the landlords, if they chose 
to co-operate, might do more for the country now than any kings or 
laws could. What you want here is not a Catholic or Protestant 
party, but an Irish party. 

In the midst of these reflections, and by what the reader will 
donbtless think a blessed interruption, we came in sight of the town 
of Ballinasloe and its " gash-lamps," which a fellow-passenger did not 
fail to point out with admiration. The road-menders, however, did not 
appear to think that light was by any means necessary : for, having 
been occupied, in the morning, in digging a fine hole upon the high- 
way, previous to some alterations to be effected there, they had left 
their work at sun-down, without any lamp to warn coming travellers 
of the hole — which we only escaped by a wonder. The papers have 



ENGLISH TYRANNY. 233 

much such another stor>'. In the Gahvay and Balhnasloe coach a 
horse on the road suddenly fell down and died ; the coachman drove 
his coach unicorn-fashion into town ; and, as for the dead horse, of 
course he left it on the road at the place where it fell, and where 
another coach coming up was upset over it, bones broken, passengers 
maimed, coach smashed. By heavens ! the tyranny of England is 
unendurable ; and I have no doubt it had a hand in upsetting that 
coach. 



234 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

BALLINASLOE TO DUBLIN. 

URING the cattle-fair the cele- 
brated town of Ballinasloe is 
thronged with farmers from all 
parts of the kingdom — the 
cattle being picturesquely ex- 
hibited in the park of the noble 
proprietor of the town, Lord 
Clancarty. As it was not fair- 
time the town did not seem 
particularly busy, nor was there 
much to remark in it, except 
a church, and a magnificent 
lunatic asylum, that lies outside 
the town on the Dublin road, 
and is as handsome and stately 
as a palace. I think the beg- 
gars were more plenteous and 
more loathsome here than 
almost anywhere. To one hideous wretch I was obliged to give 
money to go away, which he did for a moment, only to obtrude his 
horrible face directly afterwards half eaten away with disease. " A 
penny for the sake of poor little Mer}-," said another woman, who had 
a baby sleeping on her withered breast ; and how can any one who 
has a little Mery at home resist such an appeal ? " Pity the poor 
blind man ! " roared a respectably dressed grenadier of a fellow. I 
told him to go to the gentleman with a red neckcloth and fur cap (a 
young buck from Trinity College) — to whom the blind man with much 
simplicity immediately stepped over ; and as for the rest of the beggars, 
what pen or pencil could describe their hideous leering flattery, their 
cringing, swindling humour ! 

The inn, like the town, being made to accommodate the periodical 
crowds of visitors w'ho attended the fair, presented in their absence 




THE INN AT BALLINASLOE. 



235 



rather a faded and desolate look ; and in spite of the live-stock for 
which the place is famous, the only portion of their produce which I 
could get to my share, after twelve hours' fasting and an hour's bell- 
ringing and scolding, was one very lean mutton-chop and one very 
small damp kidney, brought in by an old tottering waiter to a table 
spread in a huge black coffee-room, dimly lighted by one little jet of 
gas. 

As this only served very faintly to light up the above banquet, the 
waiter, upon remonstrance, proceeded to light the other bee; but the 



,"(.'hii!i'i"iil' I , 'fru: 




lamp was sulky, and upon this attempt to force it, as it were, refused 
to act altogether, and went out. The big room was then accom- 
modated with a couple of yellow mutton-candles. There was a neat, 
handsome, correct young English officer warming his slippers at the 
fire, and opposite him sat a v/orthy gentleman, with a glass of 
" mingled materials," discoursing to him in a very friendly and con- 
fidential way. 

As I don't know the gentleman's name, and as it is not at all im- 
probable, from the situation in which he was, that he has quite 



236 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

forgotten the night's conversation, I hope there will be no breach of 
confidence in recalling some part of it. The speaker was dressed in 
deep black— worn, however, with that degage air peculiar to the 
votaries of Bacchus, or that nameless god, offspring of Bacchus and 
Ceres, who may have invented the noble liquor called whisky. It was 
fine to see the easy folds in which his neckcloth confined a shirt-collar 
moist with the generous drops that trickled from the chin above, — its 
little per-centage upon the punch. There was a fine dashing black- 
satin waistcoat that called for its share, and generously disdained to 
be buttoned. I think this is the only specimen I have seen yet of the 
personage still so frequently described in the Irish novels — the careless 
drinking squire— the Irish Will Whimble. 

" Sir," says he, " as I was telling you before this gentleman came 
in (from Westport, I preshume, sir, by the mail ? and my service to 
you !), the butchers in Tchume (Tuam)— where I live, and shall be 
happy to see you and give you a shakedown, a cut of mutton, and 
the use of as good a brace of pointers as ever you shot over — the 
butchers say to me, whenever I look in at their shops and ask for a 
joint of meat — they say : ' Take down that quarther o' mutton, boy ; 
it's no use weighing it for Mr. Bodkin. He can tell with an eye 
what's the weight of it to an ounce ! ' And so, sir, I can ; and I'd 
make a bet to go into any market in Dublin, Tchume, Ballinasloe, 
where you please, and just by looking at the meat decide its weight." 

At the pause, during which the gentleman here designated Bodkin 
drank off his " materials," the young officer said gravely that this was 
a very rare and valuable accomplishment, and thanked him for the in- 
vitation to Tchume. 

The honest gentleman proceeded with his personal memoirs ; and 
(with a charming modesty that authenticated his tale, while it interested 
his hearers for the teller) he called for a fresh tumbler, and began dis- 
coursing about horses. " Them I don't know," says he, confessing the 
fact at once ; "or, if I do, I've been always so unlucky with them that 
it's as good as if I didn't. 

" To give you an idea of my ill-fortune : Me brother-'n-law Burke 
once sent me three colts of his to sell at this very fair of Ballinasloe, 
and for all I could do I could only get a bid for one of 'em, and sold 
her for sixteen pounds. And d'ye know what that mare was, sir.^" 
says Mr. Bodkin, giving a thump that made the spoon jump out of the 
punch-glass for fright. " D'ye know who she was ? she was Water- 
Wagtail, sir, — Water- Wagtail ! She won fourteen cups and gl^ates 
in Ireland before she went to Liverpool ; and you know what she did 



A GOOD OLD IRISH GENTLEMAN. 237 

there ? " (We said, " Oh ! of course.") " Well, sir, the man who bought 
her from me sold her for four hunder' guineas ; and in England she 
fetched eight hunder' pounds. 

"Another of them very horses, gentlemen (Tim, some hot wather — 
screeching hot, you divil — and a sthroke of the limin)— another of them 
horses that I was refused fifteen pound for, me brother-in-law sould 
to Sir Rufford Bufford for a hunder'-and-fifty guineas. Wasn't //lat 
luck ? 

" Well, sir, Sir Rufford gives Burke his bill at six months, and don't 
pay it when it come jue. A pretty pickle Tom Burke was in, as I leave 
ye to fancy, for he'd paid away the bill, which he thought as good as 
goold ; and sure it ought to be, for Sir Rufford had come of age since 
the bill was drawn, and before it was due, and, as I needn't tell you, 
had slipped into a very handsome property. 

" On the protest of the bill, Burke goes in a fury to Gresham's in 
Sackville Street, where the baronet was living, and (would ye believe 
it?) the latter says he doesn't intend to meet the bill, on the score that 
he was a minor when he gave it. On which Burke was in such a rage 
that he took a horsewhip and vowed he'd beat the baronet to a jelly, 
and post him in every club in Dublin, and publish every circumstance 
of the transaction." 

'^It does seem rather a queer one," says one of Mr. Bodkin's 
hearj^rs. 

^' Queer indeed : but that's not it, you see ; for Sir Rufford is as 
honourable a man as ever lived ; and after this quarrel he paid Burke 
his money, and they've been warm friends ever since. But what I 
want to show ye is our infernal luck. T/iree months before^ Sir Rufford 
had sold that very horse for three hunder'' gjiine as P 

The worthy gentleman had just ordered in a fresh tumbler of his 
favourite liquor, when we wished him good-night, and slept by no means 
the worse, because the bed-room candle was carried by one of the 
prettiest young chambermaids possible. 

,Next morning, surrounded by a crowd of beggars more filthy, 
hideous, and importunate than any I think in the most favoured towns 
of the south, we set off, a coach-load, for Dublin. A clergyman, a 
guard, a Scotch farmer, a butcher, a bookseller's hack, a lad bound far 
Maynooth and another' for Trinity, made a varied, pleasant party 
enough, where each, according to his hghts, had something to say. 
, I have seldom seen a more dismal and uninteresting road than 
that which we now took, and which brought us through the " old, 
•inconvenient, ill-built, and ugly town of Athlone." The painter would 



238 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

find here, however, some good subjects for his sketch-book, in spite of 
the commination of the Guide-book. Here, too, great improvements 
are taking place for the Shannon navigation, which will render the 
town not so inconvenient as at present it is stated to be ; and hard by 
Has a httle village that is known and loved by all the world where 
English is spoken. It is called Lishoy, but its real name is Auburn, 
and it gave birth to one Noll Goldsmith, whom Mr. Boswell was in 
the habit of despising very heartily. At the Quaker town of Moate, 
the butcher and the farmer dropped off, the clergyman went inside, 
and their places were filled by four Maynoothians, whose vacation was 
just at an end. One of them, a freshman, was inside the coach with 
the clergyman, and told him, with rather a long face, of the dismal 
discipline of his college. They are not allowed to quit the gates 
(except on general walks) ; they are expelled if they read a newspaper ; 
and they begin term with " a retreat " of a w^eek, which time they 
are made to devote to silence, and, as it is supposed, to devotion and 
meditation. 

I must say the young fellows drank plenty of whisky on the road, 
to prepare them for their year's abstinence ; and, when at length 
arrived in the miserable village of Maynooth, determined not to go 
into college that night, but to devote the evening to " a lark." They 
were simple, kind-hearted young men, sons of farmers or tradesmen 
seemingly ; and, as is always the case here, except among some of the 
gentry, very gentlemanlike and pleasing in manners. Their talk was 
of this companion and that ; how one was in rhetoric, and another in 
logic, and a third had got his curacy. Wait for a while ; and with the 
happy system pursued within the walls of their college, those smiHng, 
good-humoured faces will come out with a scowl, and downcast eyes 
that seem afraid to look the world in the face. When the time comes 
for them to take leave of yonder dismal-looking barracks, they will be 
men no longer, but bound over to the church, body and soul : their 
free thoughts chained down and kept in darkness, their honest affec- 
tions mutilated. Well, I hope they will be happy to-night at any 
rate, and talk and laugh to their hearts' content. The poor freshman, 
whose big chest is carried off by the porter yonder to the inn, has but 
twelve hours more of hearty, natural, human life. To-morrow, they 
will begin their work upon him ; cramping his mind, and biting his 
tongue, and firing and cutting at his heart,— breaking him to pull the 
church chariot. Ah ! why didn't he stop at home, and dig potatoes 
and get children ? 

Part of the drive from Maynooth to Dublin is exceedingly pretty ; 



THE MAYNOOTH STUDENTS. 



239 



you are carried through Leixlip, Lucan, ChapeHzod, and by scores of 
parks and villas, until the gas-lamps come in sight. Was there ever 
a cockney that was not glad to see them ; and did not prefer the sight 
of them, in his heart, to the best lake or mountain ever invented? Pat 
the waiter comes jumping down to the car and says, " Welcome back, 
sir ! " and bustles the trunk into the queer httle bedroom, with all the 
coidial hospitality imaginable. 








240 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK, 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

TWO DAYS IN WICKLOW. 



HE little tour we have just 
been taking has been per- 
formed, not only by myriads 
of the '• car-drivingest, tay- 
drinkingest, say-bathingest 
people in the world," the 
inhabitants of the city of 
Dublin, but also by all the 
tourists who have come to 
discover this country for the 
benefit of the Enghsh nation. 
" Look here ! " says the rag- 
ged, bearded genius of a 
guide at the Seven Churches. 
" This is the spot which Mr. 
Henry Inglis particularly 
admired, and said it was 
exactly like Norway. Many's the song I've heard ]\Ir. Sam Lover 
sing here— a pleasant gentleman entirely. Have you seen my picture 
that's taken off in Mrs. Hall's book ? All the strangers know me by it, 
though it makes me much cleverer than I am." Similar tales has he 
of Mr. Barrow, and the Transatlantic Willis, and of Crofton Croker, 
who has been everywhere. 

The guide's remarks concerning the works of these gentlemen 
inspired me, I must confess, with considerable disgust and jealousy. 
A plague take them ! what remains for me to discover after the gallant 
adventurers in the service of Paternoster Row have examined every 
rock, lake, and ruin of the district, exhausted it of all its legends, and 
"invented new" most likely, as their daring genius prompted? Hence 
it follows that the description of the two days' jaunt must of necessity 
be short ; lest persons who have read former accounts should be led to 




DUBLIN DANDIES. 241 

refer to the same, and make comparisons which might possibly be un- 
favourable to the present humble pages. 

Is there anything new to be said regarding the journey ? In the 
first place, there's the railroad : it's no longer than the railroad to 
Greenwich, to be sure, and almost as well known ; but has it been 
done? that's the question ; or has anybody discovered the dandies on 
the railroad '^. 

After wondering at the beggars and carmen of Dublin, the stranger 
can't help admiring another vast and numerous class of inhabitants 
of the city — namely, the dandies. Such a number of smartly-dressed 
young fellows I don't think any town possesses : no, not Paris, where 
the young shopmen, with spurs and stays, may be remarked strutting 
abroad on fete-days ; nor London, where on Sundays, in the Park, 
you see thousands of this cheap kind of aristocracy parading ; nor 
Liverpool, famous for the breed of commercial dandies, desk and 
counter D'Orsays and cotton and sugar-barrel Brummels, and whom 
one remarks pushing on to business with a brisk determined air. All 
the above races are only to be encountered on holidays, except by 
those persons whose affairs take them to shops, docks, or counting- 
houses, where these fascinating young fellows labour during the 
week. 

But the Dublin breed of dandies is quite distinct from those of 
the various cities above named,^ and altogether superior : for they 
appear every day, and all day long, not once a week merely, and have 
an original and splendid character and appearance of their own, very 
hard to describe, though no doubt every tJ'aveller, as well as myself, 
has admired and observed it. They assume a sort of military and 
ferocious look, not observable in other cheap dandies, except in 
Paris perhaps now and then ; and are to be remarked not so much 
for the splendour of their ornaments as for the profusion of them. 
Thus, for instance, a hat which is worn straight over the two eyes 
costs very likely more than one which hangs upon one ear ; a great 
oily bush of hair to balance the hat (otherwise the head no doubt 
would fall hopelessly on one side) is even more economical than a 
crop which requires the barber's scissors oft-times ; also a tuft on the 
chin may be had at a small expense of bear's-grease by persons of a 
proper age ; and although big pins are the fashion, I am bound to say 
I have never seen so many or so big as here. Large agate marbles or 
"taws," globes terrestrial and celestial, pawnbrokers' balls, — I can- 
not find comparisons large enough for these wonderful ornaments of 
the person. Canes also should be mentioned, which are sold very 



242 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

splendid, with gold or silver heads, for a shilling on the Quays ; and 
the dandy not uncommonly finishes off with a horn quizzing-glass, 
which being stuck in one eye contracts the brows and gives a fierce 
determined look to the whole countenance. 

In idleness at least these young men can compete with the 
greatest lords ; and the wonder is, how the city can support so many 
of them, or they themselves ; how they manage to spend their time : who 
gives them money to ride hacks in the "Phaynix" on field and race 
days ; to have boats at Kingstown during the summer ; and to be 
crowding the railway-coaches all the day long ? Cars go whirling 
about all day, bearing squads of them. You see them sauntering at 
all the railway-stations in vast numbers, and jumping out of the car- 
riages as the trains come up, and greeting other dandies with that rich 
large brogue which some actor ought to make known to the English 
public : it being the biggest, richest, and coarsest of all the brogues of 
Ireland. 

I think these dandies are the chief objects which arrest the 
strangers attention as he travels on the Kingstown railroad, and I 
have always been so much occupied in watching and wondering at 
them as scarcely to have leisure to look at anything else during the 
pretty little ride of twenty minutes so beloved by every Dublin 
cockney. The waters of the bay wash in many places the piers on 
which the railway is built, and you see the calm stretch of water 
beyond, and the big purple hill of Howth, and the lighthouses, and 
the jetties, and the shipping. Yesterday was a boat-race, (I don't 
know how many scores of such take place during the season,) and 
you may be sure there were tens of thousands of the dandies to look 
on. There had been boat-races the two days previous : before that, 
had been a field day — before that, three days of garrison races — 
to-day, to-morrow, and the day after, there are races at Howth. There 
seems some sameness in the sports, but everybody goes ; everybody 
is never tired ;. and then, I suppose, comes the punch-party, and the 
song in the evening — the same old pl-easures, and the same old songs 
the next day, and so on to the end. As for the boat-race, I saw 
two little boats in the distance tugging away for dear life — the beach 
and piers swarming with spectators, the bay full of small yachts and 
innumerable row-boats, and in the midst of the assemblage a convict- 
ship lying ready for sail, with a black mass of poor wretches on her 
deck — who, too, v/ere eager for pleasure. 

Who is not, in this country ? Walking aw^ay from the pier and 
King George's column, you arrive upon rows after rows of pleasure- 






BRA V. 243 

houses, whither all Dublin flocks during the summer-time — for every 
one must have his sea-bathing ; and ihey say that the country houses 
to the west of the town are empty, or to be had for very small prices, 
while for those on the coast, especially towards Kingstown, there is 
the readiest sale at large prices. I have paid frequent visits to one, 
of which the rent is as great as that of a tolerable London house ; 
and there seem to be others suited to all purses : for instance, there 
are long lines of two-roomed houses, stretching far back and away 
from the sea, accommodating, doubtless, small commercial men, or 
small families, or some of those travelling dandies we have just been 
talking about, and whose costume is so cheap and so splendid. 

A two-horse car, which will accommodate twelve, or will con- 
descend to receive twenty passengers, starts from the railway- station 
for Bray, running along the coast for the chief part of the journey, 
though you have but few views of the sea, on account of intervening 
woods and hills. The whole of this country is covered with handsome 
villas and their gardens, and pleasure grounds. There are round 
many of the houses parks of some extent, and always of considerable 
beauty, among the trees of which the road winds. New churches are 
likewise to be seen in various places ; built like the poor-houses, that 
are likewise everywhere springing up, pretty much upon one plan — a 
sort of bastard or Vauxhall Gothic — resembling no architecture of any 
age previous to that when Horace Walpole invented the castle of 
Otranto and the other monstrosity upon Strawberry Hill : though it 
must be confessed that those on the Bray line are by no means so 
imaginative. Weil, what matters say you, that the churches be ugly, 
if the truth is preached within.? Is it not fair, however, to say that 
Beauty is the truth too, of its kind ? and why should it not be culti- 
vated as well as other truth ? Why build these hideous barbaric 
temples, when at the expense of a little study and taste beautiful 
structures might be raised ? 

After leaving Bray, with its pleasant bay, and pleasant river, and 
pleasant inn, the little Wicklow tour may be said to commence pro- 
perly ; and, as ths t romantic and beautiful country has been described 
many times in famihar terms, our only chance is to speak thereof in 
romantic and beautiful language, such as no other writer can pos- 
sibly have employed. 

We raug at the gate of the steward's lodge and said, " Grant us a 
pass, we pray, to see the parks of Powerscourt, and to behold the 
brown deer upon the grass, and the cool shadows under the whisper- 
ing trees."' 

R 2 



244 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

But the steward's son answered, " You may not see the parks ot 
Powerscourt, for the lord of the castle comes home, and we expect him 
daily." So, wondering at this reply, but not understanding the same, 
we took leave of the son of the steward and said, "No doubt 
Powerscourt is not fit to see. Have we not seen parks in England, 
my brother, and shall we break our hearts that this Irish one hath its 
gates closed to us?" 

Then the car-boy said, " My lords, the park is shut, but the water- 
fall runs for every man ; will it please you to see the waterfall ? " 
" Boy," w^e replied, " we ^have seen many waterfalls ; nevertheless, 
lead on ! " And the boy took his pipe out of his mouth and be- 
laboured the ribs of his beast. 

And the horse made believe, as it were, to trot, and jolted the 
ardent travellers ; and ^\^ passed the green trees of Tinnehinch, which 
the grateful Irish nation bought and consecrated to the race of Grattan ; 
and we said, " What nation will spend fifty thousand pounds for our 
benefit?" and we wished we might get it; and we passed on. The 
birds were, meanwhile, chanting concerts in the woods ; and the sun 
was double-gilding the golden corn. 

And we came to a hill, which was steep and long of descent ; and 
^he car-boy said, " My lords, I may never descend this hill with safety 
to your honours' bones : for my horse is not sure of foot, and loves to 
knee? in the highway. Descend therefore, and I will await your re- 
turn here on the top of the hill." 

So we descended, and one grumbled greatly ; but the other said, 
'Sir, be of good heart ! the way is pleasant, and the footman will not 
weary as he travels it." And w^e went through the swinging gates 
of a park, where the harvest -men sate at their potatoes — a mealy 
meal. 

The way was not short, as the companion said, but still it was a 
pleasant way to walk. Green stretches of grass were there, and a 
forest nigh at hand. It was but September : yet the autumn had 
already begun to turn the green trees into red ; and the ferns that were 
waving underneath the trees were reddened and fading too. And as 
Dr. Jones's boys of a Saturday disport in the meadows after school- 
hours, so did the little clouds run races over the waving grass. And 
as grave ushers who look on smiling at the sports of these little ones, 
so stood the old trees around the green, whispering and nodding to one 
another. 

Purple mountains rose before us in front, and we began presently 
to hear a noise and roaring afar off— not a fierce roaring, but one deep 



POWERSCOURT WATERFALL. 245 

and calm, like to the respiration of the great sea, as he lies basking on 
the sands in the sunshine. 

And we came soon to a little hillock of green, which was standing 
before a huge mountain of purple black, and there were white clouds over 
the mountains, and some trees waving on the hillock, and between the 
trunks of them we saw the waters of the waterfall descending ; and 
there was a snob on a rock, who stood and examined the same. 



*i>>ii 



^V \ ^\\^tS 



Then we approached the water, passing the clump of oak-trees. 
The waters were white, and the cliffs which they varnished were 
purple. But those round about were grey, tall, and gay with blue 
shadows, and ferns, heath, and rusty-coloured funguses sprouting 
here and there in the same. But in the ravine where the waters fell, 
roaring as it were with the fall, the rocks were dark, and the foam 
of the cataract was of a yellow colour. And we stood, and were 
silent, and wondered. And still the trees continued to wave, and the 
waters to roar and tumble, and the sun to shine, and the fresh wind to 
blow. 

And we stood and looked : and said in our hearts it was beautiful, 
and bethought us how shall all this be set down in types and ink ? 
(for our trade is to write books and sell the same— a chapter for a 
guinea, a line for a penny) ; and the waterfall roared in answer. " For 
shame, O vain man ! think not of thy books and of thy pence now ; 
but look on, and wonder, and be silent. Can types or ink describe my 
beauty, though aided by thy small wit 1 I am made for thee to praise 
and wonder at : be content, and cherish thy wonder. It is enough 



246 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

that thou hast seen a great thing : is it needful that thou shouldst prate 
of all thou hast seen ? " 

So we came away silently, and walked through the park without 
looking back. And there was a man at the gate, who opened it and 
seemed to say, " Give me a liitle sixpence." But we gave nothing, 
and walked up the hill, which was sore to climb ; and on the summit 
found the car-boy, who was lolling on his cushions and smoking, as 
happy as a lord. 




-i^. 



Quitting the waterfall at Powerscourt (the grand style in which it 
has been described was adopted in order that the reader, who has 
probably read other descriptions of the spot, might have at least some- 
tJmig new in this account of it), we speedily left behind us the rich 
and wooded tract of country about Powerscourt, and came to a bleak 
tract, which, perhaps by way of contrast with so much natural wealth, 
is not unpleasing, and began ascending what is very properly called 
the Long Hill. Here you see, in the midst of the loneliness, a grim- 
looking barrack, that was erected when, after the RebeUion, it was 
necessary for some time to occupy this most rebellious country ; and 
a church, looking equally dismal, a lean-looking sham-Gothic building, 
in the midst of this green desert. The road to Luggala, whither we 
were bound, turns off the Long Hill, up another hill, which seems still 
longer and steeper, inasmuch as it was ascended perforce on foot, and 
over lonely boggy moorlands, enlivened by a huge grey boulder 
plumped here and there, and comes, one wonders how, to the spot. 
Close to this hill of Slievebuck is marked in the maps a district called 
" the uninhabited country," and these stones probably fell at a period 
of time when not only this district, but all the world was uninhabited, 
— and in some convulsion of the neighbouring mountains this and 
other enormous rocks were cast abroad. 

From behind one of them, or out of the ground somehow, as we 
went up the hill, sprang little ragged guides, who are always lurking 



VULGAR HISTORIES. 247 

about in search of stray pence from tourists ; and we had three or four 
of such at our back by the time we were at the top of the hill. Almost 
the first sight we saw was a smart coach-and-four, with a loving 
wedding-party within^ and a genteel valet and lady's-maid without. I 
wondered had they been burying their modest loves in the uninhabited 
district ? But presently, from the top of the hill,. I saw the place in 
which their honeymoon had been passed : nor could any pair of lovers, 
nor a pious hermit bent on retirement from the world, have selected a 
more sequestered spot. 

Standing by a big shining granite stone on the hill-top, we looked 
immediately down upon Lough Tay— a little round lake of half a mile 
in length, which lay beneath us as black as a pool of ink — a high, 
crumbling, white-sided mountain falling abruptly into it on the side 
opposite to us, with a huge ruin of shattered rocks at its base. North- 
wards, we could see between mountains a portion of the neighbouring 
lake of Lough Dan — which, too, was dark, though the Annamoe river, 
which connects the two lakes, lay coursing through the greenest 
possible flats and shining as bright as silver. Brilliant green shores, 
too, come gently down to the southern side of Lough Tay ; through 
these runs another river, with a small rapid or fall, which makes a 
music for the lake ; and here, amidst beautiful woods, lies a villa, 
where the four horses, the groom and valet, the postilions, and the 
young couple had no doubt, been hiding themselves. 

Hereabouts, the owner of the villa, Mr. Latouche, has a great 
grazing establishment ; and some herd-boys, no doubt seeing strangers 
on the hill, thought proper that the cattle should stray that way, that 
they might drive them back again, and parenthetically ask the 
travellers for money, — everybody asks travellers for money, as it 
seems. Next day, admiring in a labourer's arms a little child — his 
master's son, who could not speak — the labourer, his he-nurse, spoke 
for him, and demanded a little sixpence to buy the child apples. One 
grows not a little callous to this sort of beggary : and the only one 
of our numerous young guides who got a reward was the raggedest of 
them. He and his companions had just come from school, he said, — 
not a Government school, but a private one, where they paid, I asked 
how much, — "Was it a penny a week ?" " No ; not a penny a week, 
but so much at the end of the year." " Was it a barrel of meal, or a 
few stone of potatoes, or something of that sort .? " "■ Yes ; something 
of that sort." 

The something must, however, have been a very small something 
on the poor lad's part. He was one of four young ones, who lived with 



248 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

their mother, a widow. He had no work ; he could get no work ; 
nobody had work. His mother had a cabin with no land — not a perch 
of land, no potatoes — nothing but the cabin. How did they live? — the 
mother knitted stockings. I asked had she any stockings at home ? 
— the boy said, " No." How did he live?— he lived how he could; 
and we gave him threepence, with which, in dehght, he went bounding 
off to the poor mother. Gracious heavens ! what a history to hear, 
told by a child looking quite cheerful as he told it, and as if the story 
was quite a common one. And a common one, too, it is : and God 
forgive us. 

Here is another, and of a similar low kind, but rather pleasanter. 
We asked the car-boy how much he earned. He said, " Seven 
shillings a week, and his chances"— which, in the summer season, from 
the number of tourists who are jolted in his car, must be tolerably 
good — eight or nine shillings a week more, probably. But, he said, 
in winter his master did not hire him for the car ; and he was obliged 
to look for work elsewhere : as for saving, he never had saved a shilling 
in his life. 

We asked him was he married ? and he said. No, but he was as 
good as vta7'riedj for he had an old mother and four little brothers to 
keep, and six mouths to feed, and to dress himself decent to drive the 
gentlemen. Was not the " as good as married " a pretty expression ? 
and might not some of what are called their betters learn a little good 
from these simple poor creatures ? There's many a young fellow who 
sets up in the world would think it rather hard to have four brothers 
to support ; and I have heard more than one genteel Christian pining 
over five hundred a year. A few such may read this, perhaps : let 
them think of the Irish widow with the four children and nothing, and 
at least be more contented with their port and sherry and their leg of 
mutton. 

This brings us at once to the subject of dinner and the little village, 
Roundwood, which was reached by this time, lying a few miles off 
from the lakes, and reached by a road not particularly remarkable for 
any picturesqueness in beauty ; though you pass through a simple, 
pleasing landscape, always agreeable as a repose, I think, after viewing 
a sight so beautiful as those mountain lakes we have just quitted. All 
the hills up which we had panted had imparted a fierce sensation of 
hunger ; and it was nobly decreed that we should stop in the middle 
of the street of Roundwood, impartially between the two hotels, and 
solemnly decide upon a resting-place after having inspected the larders 
and bedrooms of each. 



THE THEATRE. 249 

And here, as an impartial writer, I must say that the hotel of Mr. 
Wheatly possesses attractions which few men can resist, in the shape 
of two very handsome young ladies his daughters ; whose faces, were 
they but painted on his signboard, instead of the mysterious piece 
which ornaments it, would infallibly draw tourists into the house, 
thereby giving the opposition inn of Murphy not the least chance of 
custom. 

A landlord's daughters in England, inhabiting a little country inn, 
would be apt to lay the cloth for the traveller, and their respected 
father would bring in the first dish of the dinner ; but this arrange- 
ment is never known in Ireland : we scarcely ever see the cheering 
countenance of my landlord. And as for the young ladies of Round- 
wood, I am bound to say that no young persons in Baker Street 
could be more genteel; and that our bill, when it was brought 
the next morning, was written in as pretty and fashionable a lady's 
hand as ever was formed in the most elegant finishing school at 
Pimlico. 

Of the dozen houses of the little village, the half seem to be houses 
of entertainment. A green common stretches before these, with its 
rural accompaniments of geese, pigs, and idlers ; a park and planta- 
tion at the end of the village, and plenty of trees round about it, give 
it a happy, comfortable, Enghshlook; which is, to my notion, the 
best compliment that can be paid to a hamlet : for where, after all, are 
villages so pretty ? 

Here, rather to one's wonder — for the district was not thickly 
enough populated to encourage dramatic exhibitions — a sort of theatre 
was erected on the common, a ragged cloth covering the spectators 
and the actors, the former (if there were any) obtaining admittance 
through two doors on the stage in front, marked " pit & galerv." 
Why should the word not be spelt with one L as with two t 

The entrance to the '^pit " was stated to be threepence, and to the 
" galery " twopence. We heard the drums and pipes of the orchestra 
as we sate at dinner : it seemed to be a good opportunity to examine 
Irish humour of a peculiar soit, and we promised ourselves a pleasant 
evening in the pit. 

But although the drums began to beat at half-past six, and a crowd 
of young people formed round the ladder at that hour, to whom the 
manager of the troop addressed the most vehement invitations to enter, 
nobody seemed to be inclined to mount the steps : for the fact most 
likely was, that not one of the poor fellows possessed the requisite 
twopence which would induce the fat old lady who sate by it to fling 



250 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

open the gallery door. At one time I thought of offering a half- 
crown for a purchase of tickets for twenty, and so at once bene- 
fiting the manager and the crowd of ragged urchins who stood 
wistfully without his pavilion ; but it seemed ostentatious, and we had 
not the courage to face the tall man in the great-coat gesticu- 
lating and shouting in front of the stage^ and make the proposi- 
tion. 

Why not ? It would have given the company potatoes at least for 
supper, and made a score of children happy. They would have seen 
"the learned pig who spells your name, the feats of manly activity, the 
wonderful Italian vaulting ; " and they would have heard the comic 
songs by " your humble servant." 

'• Your humble servant '' was the head of the troop : a long man, 
with a broad accent, a yellow top-coat, and a piteous lean face. What 
a speculation was this poor fellow's ! he must have a company of at 
least a dozen to keep. There were three girls in trousers, who danced 
in front of the stage, in Polish caps, tossing their arms about to the 
tunes of three musicianers ; there was a page, two young tragedy- 
actors, and a clown ; there was the fat old woman at the gallery-door 
waiting for the twopences ; there was the Jack Pudding ; and it was 
evident that there must have been some one within, or else who would 
take care of the learned pig ? 

The poor manager stood i"n front, and shouted to the little Irishry 
beneath ; but no one seemed to move. Then he brought forward 
Jack Pudding, and had a dialogue with him ; the jocularity of 
which, by heavens ! made the heart ache to hear. We had deter- 
mined, at least, to go to the play before that, but the dialogue was 
too much : we were obliged to walk away, unable to face that 
dreadful Jack Pudding, and heard the poor manager shouting still 
for many hours through the night, and the drums thumping vain invi- 
tations to the people. O unhappy children of the Hibernian Thespis ! 
it is my belief that they must have eaten the learned pig that night for 
supper. 

It was Sunday morning when we left the little inn at Roundwood : 
the people were flocking in numbers to church, on cars and pilhons, 
neat, comfortable, and w^ell dressed. We saw in this country more 
health, more beauty, and more shoes than I have remarked in any 
quarter. That famous resort of sightseers, the Devil's Glen, lies at a 
few miles' distance from the httle village ; and, having gone on the car 
as near to the spot as the road permitted, we made across the fields — 
boggy, stony, ill-tilled fields they were — for about a mile, at the end 



THE DEVILS GLEN. 251 

of which walk we found ourselves on the brow of the ravine that has 
received so ugly a name. 

Is there a legend about the place ? No doubt for this, as for 
almost every other natural curiosity in Ireland, there is some tale of 
monk, saint, fairy, or devil ; but our guide on the present day was a 
barrister from Dublin, who did not deal in fictions by any means so 
romantic, and the history, whatever it was, remained untold. Perhaps 
the little breechesless cicerone who offered himself would have given 
us the story, but we dismissed the urchin with scorn, and had to 
find our own way through bush and bramble down to the entrance of 
the gully. 

Here we came on a cataract, which looks very big in Messrs. 
Curry's pretty little Guide-book (that every traveller to Wicklow will 
b'^ sure to have in his pocket) ; but the waterfall, on this shining 
Sabbath morning, was disposed to labour as little as possible, and in- 
deed is a spirit of a very humble, ordinary sort. 

But there is a ravine of a mile and a half, through which a river 
runs roaring (a lady who keeps the gate will not object to receive a 
gratuity) — there is a ravine, or Devil's Glen, which forms a delightful 
wild walk, and where a Methuselah of a landscape-painter might find 
studies for all his life long. All sorts of foliage and colour, all 
sorts of delightful caprices of light and shadow— the river tumbhng 
and frothing amidst the boulders — " rmiciim per lavia imirrmcr saxa 
cieiis^' and a chorus of 150,000 birds (there might be more), hopping, 
twittering, singing under the clear cloudless Sabbath scene, make 
this walk one of the most delightful that can be taken ; and indeed I 
hope there is no harm in saying that you may get as much out 
of an hour's walk there as out of the best hour's extempore 
preaching. But this was as a salvo to our conscience for not being at 
church. 

Here, however, was a long aisle, arched gothically overhead, in a 
much better taste than is seen in some of those dismal new churches ; 
and, 'by way of painted glass, the sun lighting up multitudes of 
various-coloured leaves, and the birds for choristers, and the river by 
way of organ, and in it stones enough to make a whole library of 
sermons. No man can walk in such a place without feeling grateful, 
and grave, and humble ; and without thanking heaven for it as he 
comes away. And, walking and musing in this free, happy place, one 
could not help thinking of a million and a half of brother cockneys shut 
up in their huge prison (the tread-mill for the day being idle), and 
told by some legislators that relaxation is sinful, that works of art 



252 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

are abominations except on week-days, and that their proper place 
of resort is a dingy tabernacle, where a loud-voiced man is howling 
about hell-fire in bad grammar. Is not this beautiful world, too, 
a part of our religion ? Yes, truly, in whatever way my Lord John 
Russell may vote ; and it is to be learned without having recourse 
to any professor at any Bethesda, Ebenezer, or Jerusalem : there 
can be no mistake about it ; no terror, no bigoted dealing of dam- 
nation to one's neighbour : it is taught without false emphasis or vain 
spouting on the preacher's part — how should there be such with such a 
preacher ? 

This wild onslaught upon sermons and preachers needs perhaps 
an explanation : for which purpose we must whisk back out of the 
Devil's Glen (improperly so named) to Dublin, and to this day week, 
when, at this very time, I heard one of the first preachers of the city 
deliver a sermon that lasted for an hour and twenty minutes — time 
enough to walk up the Glen and back, and remark a thousand delight- 
ful things by the way. 

Mr. G 's church (though there would be no harm in mention- 
ing the gentleman's name, for a more conscientious and excellent man, 
as it is said, cannot be) is close by the Custom House in Dublin, and 
crowded morning and evening with his admirers. The service was 
beautifully read by him, and the audience joined in the responses, and 
in the psalms and hymns,* with a fervour which is very unusual in 
England. Then came the sermon ; and what more can be said of it 
than that it was extempore, and lasted for an hour and twenty minutes? 
The orator never failed once for a word, so amazing is his practice ; 
though, as a stranger to this kind of exercise, I could not help 
trembling for the performer, as one has for Madame Saqui on the 
slack-rope, in the midst of a blaze of rockets and squibs, expecting 
every minute she must go over. But the artist was too skilled for that ; 
and after some tremendous bound of a metaphor, in the midst of 
which you expect he must tumble neck and heels, and be engulfed in 

* Here is an extract from one of the latter — 

" Hasten to some distant isle, 
In the bosom of the deep, 
Where the skies for ever smile, 
A ltd the blacks for ever weep. ' ' 

Is it not a shame that such nonsensical false twaddle should be sung in a 
house of the Church of England, and by people assembled for grave and decent 
worship? 



EXTEMPORE PREACHING. 253 

the dark abyss of nonsense, down he was sure to come, in a most 
graceful attitude too, in the midst of a fluttering " Ah ! " from a thou- 
sand wondering people. 

But I declare solemnly that when I came to try and recollect of 
what the exhibition consisted, and give an account of the sermon 
at dinner that evening, it was quite impossible to remember a word 
of it ; although, to do the orator justice, he repeated many of his 
opinions a great number of times over. Thus, if he had to discourse 
of death to us, it was, " At the approach of the Dark Angel of the 
Grave," " At the coming of the grim King of Terrors," " At the warning 
of that awful Power to whom all of us must bow down," " At the 
summons of that Pallid Spectre whose equal foot knocks at the 
monarch's tower or the poor man's cabin " — and so forth. There is 
an examiner of plays, and indeed there ought to be an examiner of 
sermons, by which audiences are to be fully as much injured or mis- 
guided as by the other named exhibitions. What call have reverend 
gentlemen to repeat their dicta half-a-dozen times over, like Sir 
Robert Peel when he says anything that he fancies to be witty ? Why 
are men to be kept for an hour and twenty minutes listening to that 
which may be more effectually said in twenty? 

And it need not be said here that a church is not a sermon-house 
—that it is devoted to a purpose much more lofty and sacred, for 
which has been set apart the noblest service, every single word of 
which latter has been previously weighed with the most scrupulous 
and thoughtful reverence. And after this sublime work of genius, 
learning, and piety is concluded, is it not a shame that a man should 
mount a desk, who has not taken the trouble to arrange his words 
beforehand, and speak thence his crude opinions in his doubtful 
grammar ? It will be answered that the extempore preacher does 
not deliver crude opinions, but that he arranges his discourse before- 
hand : to all which it may be replied that Mr. contradicted 

himself more than once in the course of the above oration, and 
repeated himself a half-dozen of times. A man in that place has no 
right to say a word too much or too little. 

And it comes to this, — it is the preacher the people follow, not 
the prayers ; or why is this church more frequented than any other ? 
It is that warm emphasis, and word-mouthing, and vulgar imagery, 
and glib rotundity of phrase, which brings them together and keeps 
them happy and breathless. Some of this class call the Cathedral 
Service Paddfs Opera; they say it is Popish— downright scarlet — 
they won't go to it. They will have none but their own hymns — and 



254 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

pretty they are — no ornaments but those of their own minister, his 
rank incense and tawdry rhetoric. Coming out of the church, on the 
Custom House steps hard by, there was a fellow with a bald large 
forehead, a new black coat, a little Bible, spouting — spouting '^ in 
ojmie vohcbilis avuin " — the very counterpart of the reverend gentle- 
man hard by. It was just the same thing, just as well done : the 
eloquence quite as easy and round, the amplifications as ready, 
the big words rolling round the tongue just as within doors. But 
we are out of the Devil's Glen by this time ; and perhaps, instead 
of delivering a sermon there, we had better have been at church 
hearing one. 

The country people, however, are far more pious ; and the road 
along which we went to Glendalough was thronged with happy 
figures of people plodding to or from mass. A chapel-yard was 
covered with grey cloaks • and at a little inn hard by, stood numerous 
carts, cars, shandrydans, and pillioned horses, awaiting the end of the 
prayers. The aspect of the country is wild, and beautiful of course ; 
but why try to describe it ? I think the Irish scenery just like the 
Irish melodies — sweet, wild, and sad even in the sunshine. You can 
neither represent the one nor the other by words ; but I am sure if one 
could translate " The Meeting of the Waters " into form and colours, 
it would fall into the exact shape of a tender Irish landscape. So 
take and play that tune upon your fiddle, and shut your eyes, and 
muse a little, and you have the whole scene before you. 

I don't know if there is any tune about Glendalough ; but if there 
be, it must be the most delicate, fantastic, fairy melody that ever was 
played. Only fancy can describe the charms of that delightful place. 
Directly you see it, it smiles at you as innocent and friendly as a 
little child ; and once seen, it becomes your friend for ever, and you 
are always happy when you think of it. Here is a little lake, and 
little fords across it, surrounded by little mountains, and which lead 
you now to little islands where there are all sorts of fantastic little old 
chapels and graveyards ; or, again, into little brakes and shrubberies 
where small rivers are crossing over little rocks, plashing and jump- 
ing, and singing as loud as ever they can. Thomas Moore has 
written rather an awful description of it ; and it may indeed appear 
big to /nm, and to the fairies who must have inhabited the place in 
old days, that's clear. For who could be accommodated in it except 
the little people ? 

There are seven churches, whereof the clergy must have been the 
smallest persons, and have had the smallest benefices and the littlest 



GLENDALOUGH. 255 

congregations ever known. As for the cathedral, what a bishoplet it 
must have been that presided there ! The place would hardly hold 
the Bishop of London, or Mr. Sydney Smith— two full-sized clergymen 
of these days — who would be sure to quarrel there for want of room, 
or for any other reason. There must have been a dean no bigger 
than Mr. Moore before mentioned, and a chapter no bigger than that 
chapter in " Tristram Shandy " which does not contain a single word, 
and mere popguns of canons, and a beadle about as tall as Crofton 
Croker, to whip the little boys who were playing at taw (with peas) in 
the yard. 

They say there was a university, too, in the place, with I don't 
know how many thousand scholars ; but for accounts of this there is 
an excellent guide on the spot, who, for a shilling or two, w^ill tell all 
he knows, and a great deal more too. 

There are numerous legends, too, concerning Saint Kevin, and Fin 
MacCoul and the Devil, and the deuce knows what. But these 
stories are, I am bound to say, abominably stupid and stale; and 
some guide* ought to be seized upon and choked, and flung into the 
lake, by way of warning to the others to stop their interminable 
prate. This is the curse attending curiosity, for visitors to almost all 
the show-places in the country : you have not only the guide — who 
himself talks too much— but a string of ragged amateurs, starting from 
bush and briar, ready to carry his honour's umbrella or my lady's 
cloak, or to help either up a bank or across a stream. And all the 
while they look wistfully in your face, saying, " Give me sixpence ! " 
as clear as looks can speak. The unconscionable rogues ! how dare 
they, for the sake of a little starvation or so, interrupt gentlefolks in 
their pleasure ! 

A long tract of wild country, with a park or two here and there, 
a police -barrack perched on a hill, a half-starved-looking church 
stretching its long scraggy steeple over a wide plain, mountains 
whose base is richly cultivated while their tops are purple and lonely, 
warm cottages and farms nesthng at the foot of the hills, and humble 
cabins here and there on the wayside, accompany the car, that jingles 
back over fifteen miles of ground through Inniskerry to Bray. You 
pass by wild gaps and Greater and Lesser Sugar Loaves ; and about 
eight o'clock, v^^hen the sky is quite red with sunset, and the long 

* It must he said, for the worthy fellow who accompanied us, and who 
acted as cicerone previously to the great Willis, the great Hall, the great 
Barrow, that though he wears a ragged coat his manners are those of a gentle- 
man, and his conversation evinces no small talent, taste, and scholarship. 



256 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

shadows are of such a purple as (they may say what they like) Claude 
could no more paint than I can, you catch a ghmpse of the sea 
beyond Bray, and crying out, " eaXarra, OakaTra ! " affect to be won- 
drously delighted by the sight of that element. 

The fact is, however, that at Bray is one of the best inns in 
Ireland ; and there you may be perfectly sure is a good dinner ready, 
five minutes after the honest car-boy, with innumerable hurroos and 
smacks of his whip, has brought up his passengers to the door with a 
gallop. 



As for the Vale of Avoca, I have not described that : because (as 
has been before occasionally remarked) it is vain to attempt to describe 
natural beauties ; and because, secondly (though this is a minor con- 
sideration), we did not go thither. But we went on another day to 
the Dargle, and to Shanganah, and the city of Cabintoely, and to the 
Scalp — that wild pass : and I have no more to say about them than 
about the Vale of Avoca, The Dublin Cockney, who has these places 
at his door, knows them quite well ; and as for the Londoner, who is 
meditating a trip to the Rhine for the summer, or to Brittany or 
Normandy, let us beseech him to see his own country fust (if Lord 
Lyndhurst will allow us to call this a part of it) ; and if, after twenty- 
four hours of an easy journey from London, the Cockney be not 
placed in the midst of a country as beautiful, as strange to him, as 
romantic as the most imaginative man on 'Change can desire,— may 
this work be praised by the critics all round and never reach a second 
edition ! 



AGRICULTURAL SHOW AT NAAS. 



257 



CHAPTER XXV. 

COUNTRY MEETINGS IN KILDARE— MEATH — DROGHEDA. 

N agricultural show was to 
be held at the town of Naas, 
and I was glad, after having 
seen the grand exhibition at 
Cork, to be present at a more 
homely, unpretending country- 
festival, where the eyes of 
Europe, as the orators say, 
did not happen' to be looking 
on. Perhaps men are apt, 
under the idea of this sort of 
inspection, to assume an air 
somewhat more pompous and 
magnificent than that which 
they wear every day. The 
Naas meeting was conducted without the slightest attempt at splendour 
or display— a hearty, modest, matter-of-fact country meeting. 

Market-day was fixed upon of course, and the town, as we drove 
into it, was thronged with frieze-coats, the market-place bright with a 
great number of apple-stalls, and the street filled with carts and vans 
of numerous small tradesmen, vending cheeses, or cheap crockeries, 
or ready-made clothes and such goods. A clothier, with a great 
crowd round him, had arrayed himself in a staring new waistcoat of 
his stock, and was turning slowly round to exhibit the garment, 
spouting all the while to his audience, and informing them that he 
could fit out any person, in one minute, "in a complete new shuit from 
head to fut." There seemed to be a crowd of gossips at every shop- 
door, and, of course, a number of gentlemen waiting at the inn-steps, 
criticizing the cars and carriages as they drove up. Only those who 
live in small towns know what an object of interest the street becomes, 
and the carriages and horses which pass therein. Most of the gentle- 
men had sent stock to compete for the prizes. The shepherds were 

s 




258 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



tending the stock. The judges were making their award, and until 
their sentence was given, no competitors could enter the show-yard. 
The entrance to that, meanwhile, was thronged by a great posse of 
people, and as the gate abutted upon an old grey tower, a number of 
people had scaled that, and were looking at the beasts in the court 
below. Likewise, there was a tall haystack, which possessed similar 
advantages of situation, and was equally thronged with men and boys. 
The rain had fallen heavily all night, the heavens were still black with 
it, and the coats of the men, and the red feet of many ragged female 
spectators, were liberally spattered with mud. 



-J}~M^^\ 



y 




The first object of interest we were called upon to see was a famous 
stallion ; and passing through the little by-streets (dirty and small, but 
not so small and dirty as other by-streets to be seen in Irish towns,) 
we came to a porte-cochere, leading into a yard filled with wet fresh 
hay, sinking juicily under the feet ; and here in a shed was the famous 
stallion. His sire must have been a French diligence-horse ; he was 
of a roan colour, with a broad chest, and short clean legs. His fore- 
head was ornamented with a blue ribbon, on which his name and 
prizes were painted, and on his chest huncr a couple of medals by a 



THE FARMERS' DLNNER. 259 

chain — a silver one awarded to him at Cork, a gold one carried*off by 
superior merit from other stallions assembled to contend at Dublin. 
When the points of the animal were sufficiently discussed, a mare, his 
sister, was produced, and admired still more than himself. Any man 
who has witnessed the performance of the French horses in the Havre 
dihgence, must admire the vast strength and the extraordinary swiftness 
of the breed ; and it was agreed on all hands, that such horses would 
prove valuable in this country, where it is hard now to get a stout 
horse for the road, so much has the fashion for blood, and nothing but 
blood, prevailed of late. 

By the time the stallion was seen, the judges had done their arbi- 
tration ; and we went to the yard, where broad-backed sheep were 
resting peaceably in their pens ; bulls were led about by the nose ; 
enormous turnips, both Swedes and Aberdeens, reposed in the mud ; 
little cribs of geese, hens, and peafowl were come to try for the prize ; 
and pigs might be seen — some encumbered with enormous families, 
others with fat merely. They poked up one brute to walk for us : he 
made, after many futile attempts, a desperate rush forward, his leg 
almost lost in fat, his immense sides quivering and shaking with the 
exercise ; he was then allowed to return to his straw, into which he 
sank panting. Let us hope that he went home with a pink ribbon 
round his tail that night, and got a prize for his obesity. 

I think the pink ribbon was, at least to a Cockney, the pleasantest 
sight of all : for on the evening after the show we saw many carts 
going away so adorned, having carried off prizes on the occasion. 
First came a great bull stepping along, he and his driver having each 
a bit of pink on their heads ; tiien a cart full of sheep ; then a car of 
good-natured-looking people, having a churn in the midst of them 
that sported a pink favour. When all the prizes were distributed, a 
select company sat down to dinner at Macavoy's Hotel ; and no 
doubt a reporter who was present has given in the county paper an 
account of all the good things eaten and said. At our end of the table 
we had saddle-of-mutton, and I remarked a boiled leg of the same 
delicacy, with turnips, at the opposite extremity. Before the vice I 
observed a large piece of roast-beef, which I could not observe at the 
end of dinner, because it was all swallowed. After the mutton we had 
cheese, and were just beginning to think that we had dined very suffi- 
ciently, when a squadron of apple-pies came smoking in, and convinced 
us that, in such a glorious cause, Britons are never at fault. We ate 
up the apple-pies, and then the punch was called for by those who 
preferred that beverage to wine, and the speeches began. 



26o THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

The chairman gave " The Queen," nine times nine and one cheer 
more ; " Prince Albert and the rest of the Royal Family," great 
cheering ; " The Lord- Lieutenant " — his Excellency's health was re- 
ceived rather coolly, I thought. And then began the real business of 
the night : health of the Naas Society, health of the Agricultural 
Society, and healths all round ; not forgetting the Sallymount Beagles 
and the Kildare Foxhounds— which toasts were received with loud 
cheers and halloos by most of the gentlemen present, and elicited brief 
speeches from the masters of the respective hounds, promising good 
sport next season. After the Kildare Foxhounds, an old farmer in a 
grey coat got gravely up, and without being requested to do so in the 
least, sang a song, stating that — 

*' At seven in the morning by most of the clocks 
We rode to Kilruddery in search of a fox ;" 

and at the conclusion of his song challenged a friend to give another 
song. Another old farmer, on this, rose and sang one of Morris's 
songs with a great deal of queer humour ; and no doubt many more 
songs were sung during the evening, for plenty of hot-water jugs were 
blocking the door as we went out. 

The jolly frieze-coated songster who celebrated the Kilruddery fox, 
sang, it must be confessed, most wofully out of tune ; but still it was 
pleasant to hear him, and I think the meeting was the most agreeable 
one I have seen in Ireland : there was more good-humour, more cordial 
union of classes, more frankness and manliness, than one is accus- 
tomed to find in Irish meetings. All the speeches were kind-hearted, 
straightforward speeches, without a word of politics or an attempt at 
oratory : it was impossible to say whether the gentlemen present were 
Protestant or Catholic, — each one had a hearty word of encouragement 
for his tenant, and a kind welcome for his neighbour. There were 
forty stout, well-to-do farmers in the room, renters of fifty, seventy, a 
hundred acres of land. There were no clergymen present ; though it 
would have been pleasant to have seen one of each persuasion to say 
grace for the meeting and the meat. 

At a similar meeting at Ballytore the next day, I had an oppor- 
tunity of seeing a still finer collection of stock than had been brought 
to Naas, and at the same time one of the most beautiful flourishing 

villages in Ireland. The road to it from H town, if not remarkable 

for its rural beauty, is pleasant to travel, for evidences of neat and 
prosperous husbandry are around you everywhere : rich crops in the 
fields, and neat cottages by the roadside, accompanying us as far as 



'IHE NAAS UNION-HOUSE. 2O1 

Ballytore — a white, straggling village, surrounding green fields of some 
five furlongs square, with a river running in the midst of them, and 
numerous fine cattle on the green. Here is a large windmill, fitted up 
like a castle, with battlements and towers : the castellan thereof is a 
good-natured old Quaker gentleman, and numbers more of his following 
inhabit the town. 

The consequence was that the shops of the village were the neatest 
possible, though by no means grand or pretentious. Why should Quaker 
shops be neater than other shops t They suffer to the full as much 
oppression as the rest of the hereditary bondsmen ; and yet, in spite 
of their tyrants, they prosper. 

I must not attempt to pass an opinion upon the stock exhibited at 
Ballytore ; but, in the opinion of some large agricultural proprietors 
present, it might have figured with advantage in any show in England, 
and certainly was finer than the exhibition at Naas ; which, however, 
is a very young society. The best part of the show, however, to 
everybody's thinking, (and it is pleasant to observe the manly fair-play 
spirit which characterizes the society,) was, that the prizes of the Irish 
Agricultural Society were awarded to two men — one a labourer, the 
other a very small holder, both having reared the best stock exhibited 
on the occasion. At the dinner, which took place in a barn of the inn, 
smartly decorated with laurels for the purpose, there was as good and 
stout a body of yeomen as at Naas the day previous, but only two 
landlords ; and here, too, as at Naas, neither priest nor parson. Cattlcv 
feeding of course formed the principal theme of the after-dinner dis- 
course — not, however, altogether to the exclusion of tillage ; and there 
was a good and useful prize for those who could not afford to rear fat 
oxen — for the best kept cottage and garden, namely — which was won 
by a poor man with a large family and scanty, precarious earnings, but 
who yet found means to make the most of his small resources and to 
keep his little cottage neat and cleanly. The tariff and the plentiful 
harvest together had helped to bring down prices severely ; and we 
heard from the farmers much desponding talk. I saw hay sold for 2/. 
the ton, and oats for %s. ^d. the barrel. 

In the little village I remarked scarcely a single beggar, and very 
few bare feet indeed among the crowds who came to see the show. 
Here the Quaker village had the advantage of the town of Naas, in 
spite of its poor-house, which was only half full when we went to see 
it ; but the people prefer beggary and starvation abroad to comfort 
and neatness in the union-house. 

A neater establishment cannot be seen than this ; and liberty must 



262 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

be very sweet indeed, when people prefer it and starvation to the cer- 
tainty of comfort in the union-house. We went to see it after the 
show at Naas. 

The first persons we saw at the gate of the place were four buxom 
lasses in blue jackets and petticoats, who were giggling and laughing 
as gaily as so many young heiresses of a thousand a year, and who 
had a colour in their cheeks that any lady of Almack's might envy. 
They were cleaning pails and carrying in water from a green court or 
playground in front of the house, which some of the able-bodied men 
of the place were busy in inclosing. Passing through the large en- 
trance of the house, a nondescript Gothic building, we came to a court 
divided by a road and two low walls : the right inclosure is devoted to 
the boys of the establishment, of whom there were about fifty at play : 
boys more healthy or happy it is impossible to see. Separated from 
them is the nursery ; and here were seventy or eighty young children, 
a shrill clack of happy voices leading the way to the door where they 
were to be found. Boys and children had a comfortable little uniform, 
and shoes were furnished for all ; though the authorities did not seem 
particularly severe in enforcing the wearing of the shoes, which most 
of the young persons left behind them. 

In spite of all The Times' s in the world, the place was a happy one. 
It is kept with a neatness and comfort to which, until his entrance 
into the union-house, the Irish peasant must perforce have been a 
stranger. All the rooms and passages are white, well scoured, and 
airy ; all the windows are glazed ; all the beds have a good store of 
blankets and sheets. In the women's dormitories there lay several in- 
firm persons, not ill enough for the infirmary, and glad of the society of 
the common room : in one of the men's sleeping-rooms we found a score 
of old grey-coated men sitting round another who was reading prayers 
to them. And outside the place we found a woman starving in rags, 
as she had been ragged and starving for years : her husband was 
wounded, and lay in his house upon straw ; her children were ill with 
a fever ; she had neither meat, nor physic, nor clothing, nor fresh air, 
nor warmth for them ; — and she preferred to starve on rather than 
enter the house ! 

The last of our agricultural excursions was to the fair of Castle- 
dermot, celebrated for the show of cattle to be seen there, and attended 
by the farmers and gentry of the neighbouring counties. Long before 
reaching the place we met troops of cattle coming from it — stock of a 
beautiful kind, for the most part large, sleek, white, long-backed, most 
of the larger animals being bound for England. There was very near 



CASTLEDERMOT. 263 

as fine a show in the pastures along the road — which lies across a 
light green country with plenty of trees to ornament the landscape, and 
some neat cottages along the roadside. 

At the turnpike of Castledermot the droves of cattle met us by 
scores no longer, but by hundreds, and the long street of the place 
was thronged with oxen, sheep, and horses, and with those who wished 
to see, to sell, or to buy. The squires were all together in a cluster at 
the police-house ; the owners of the horses rode up and down, showing 
the best paces of their brutes : among whom you might see Paddy, in 
his ragged frieze-coat, seated on his donkey's bare rump, and proposing 
him for sale. I think I saw a score of this humble though useful breed 
that were brought for sale to the fair. " I can sell him," says one fellow, 
with a pompous air, " wid his tackle or widout." He was looking as 
grave over the negotiation as if it had been for a thousand pounds. 
Besides the donkeys, of course there was plenty of poultry, and there 
were pigs without number, shrieking and struggling and pushing hither 
and thither among the crowd, rebellious to the straw-rope. It was a 
fine thing to see one huge grunter and the manner in which he was 
landed into a cart. The cart was let down on an easy inclined plane 
to tempt him : two men ascending, urged him by the forelegs, other 
two entreated him by the tail. At length, when more than half of 
his body had been coaxed upon the cart, it was suddenly whisked up, 
causing the animal thereby to fall forward ; a parting shove seilt him 
altogether into the cart ; the two gentlemen inside jumped out, and 
the monster was left to ride home. 

The farmers, as usual, were talking of the tariff, predicting ruin 
to themselves, as farmers will, on account of the decreasing price 
of stock and the consequent fall of grain. Perhaps the person 
most to be pitied is the poor pig-proprietor yonder : it is his rent 
which he is carrying through the market squeaking at the end of the 
straw-rope, and Sir Robert's bill adds insolvency to that poor fellow's 
misery. 

This was the last of the sights which the kind owner of H town 

had invited me into his country to see ; and I think they were among 
the most pleasing I witnessed in Ireland. Rich and poor were 
working friendlily together ; priest and parson were alike interested 
in these honest, homely, agricultural festivals ; not a word was said 
about hereditary bondage and English tyranny ; and one did not 
much regret the absence ot those patriotic topics of conversation. If 
but for the sake of the change, it was pleasant to pass a few days with 
people among whom there was no quarrelling : no furious denunciations 



264 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

against Popery on the part of the Protestants, and no tirades against the 
parsons from their bitter and scornful opponents of the other creed. 

Next Sunday, in the county Meath, in a quiet old church lying 
amongst meadows and fine old stately avenues of trees, and for the 
benefit of a congregation of some thirty persons, I heard for the 
space of an hour and twenty minutes seme thorough Protestant doc- 
trine, and the Popish superstitions properly belaboured. Does it 
strengthen a man in his own creed to hear his neighbour's behef 
abused 1 One would imagine so : for though abuse converts nobody, 
yet many of our pastors think they are not doing their duty by their 
own fold unless they fling stones at the flock in the next field, 
and have, for the honour of the service, a match at cudgelling 
with the shepherd. Our shepherd to-day was of this pugnacious 
sort. 

The Meath landscape, if not varied and picturesque, is extremely 
rich and pleasant ; and we took some drives along the banks of the 
Boyne — to the noble park of Slane (still sacred to the memory of 
George IV., who actually condescended to pass some days there), and 
to Trim— of which the name occurs so often in Swift's Journals, and 
where stands an enormous old castle that was inhabited by Prince 
John. It was taken from him by an Irish chief, our guide said ; and 
from the Irish chief it was taken by Ohver Cromwell. O'Thuselah 
was the Irish chief's name no doubt. 

Here too stands, in the midst of one of the most wretched towns 
in Ireland, a pillar erected in honour of the Duke of Wellington by 
the gentry of his native country. His birthplace, Dangan, lies not far 
off. And as we saw the hero's statue, a flight of birds had hovered 
about it : there was one on each epaulette and two on his marshal's 
stafT. Besides these wonders, we saw a certain number of beggars ; 
and a madman, who was walking round a mound and preaching a 
sermon on grace ; and a little child's funeral came passing through 
the dismal town, the only stirring thing in it (the coffin was laid on 
a one-horse country car — a little deal box, in which the poor child lay 
— and a great troop of people followed the humble procession) ; and 
the inn-keeper, who had caught a few stray gentlefolk in a town where 
travellers must be rare ; and in his inn — which is more gaunt and 
miserable than the town itself, and which is by no means rendered 
more cheerful because sundry theological works are left for the rare 
frequenters in the coffee-room — the inn-keeper brought in a bill which 
would have been worthy of Long's, and which was paid with much 
grumbling on both sides. 



JVANNV'S WATER. 265 

It would not be a bad rule for the traveller in Ireland to avoid 
those inns where theological works are left in the coffee-room. He 
is pretty sure to be made to pay very dearly for these religious 
privileges. 

We waited for the coach at the beautiful lodge and gate of Anns- 
brook ; and one of the sons of the house coming up, invited us to 
look at the domain, which is as pretty and neatly ordered as — as any 
in England. It is hard to use this comparison so often, and must 
make Irish hearers angry. Can't one see a neat house and grounds 
without instantly thinking that they are worthy of the sister country ; 
and implying, in our cool way, its superiority to everywhere else .'' 
Walking in this gentleman's grounds, I told him, in the simplicity of 
my heart, that the neighbouring country was like Warwickshire, and 
the grounds as good as any English park. Is it the fact that English 
grounds are superior, or only that Englishmen are disposed to consider 
them, so .^ 

A pretty little twining river, called the Nanny's Water, runs through 
the park : there is a legend about that, as about other places. Once 
upon a time (ten thousand years ago), Saint Patrick being thirsty as 
he passed by this country, came to the house of an old woman, of 
whom he asked a drink of milk. The old woman brought it to his 
reverence with the best of welcomes, and .... here it is a great 
mercy that the Belfast mail comes up, whereby the reader is spared 
the rest of the history. 

The Belfast mail had only to carry us five miles to Drogheda, 
but, in revenge, it made us pay three shillings for the five miles ; and 
again, by way of compensation, it carried us over five miles of a 
country that was worth at least five shillings to see — not romantic or 
especially beautiful, but having the best of all beauty— a quiet, smiling, 
prosperous, unassuming luork-day look, that in views and landscapes 
most good judges admire. Hard by Nanny's Water, we came to 
Duleek Bridge, where, I was told, stands an old residence of the De 
Dath family, who were, moreover, builders of the picturesque old 
bridge. 

The road leads over a wide green common, which puts one in 

mind of Eng (a plague on it, there is the comparison again !), 

and at the end of the common lies the village among trees : a 
beautiful and peaceful sight. In the background there was a tall 
ivy-covered old tower, looking noble and imposing, but a ruin and 
useless ; then there was a church, and next to it a chapel— the very 
same sun was shining upon both. The chapel and church were 



266 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

connected by a farm-yard, and a score of golden ricks were in the 
background, the churches in unison, and the people (typified by the 
corn-ricks) flourishing at the feet of both. May one ever hope to see 
the day in Ireland when this little landscape allegory shall find a 
general application ? 

For some way after leaving Duleek the road and the country 
round continue to wear the agreeable, cheerful look just now lauded. 
You pass by a house where James. II. is said to have slept the night 
before the battle of the Boyne (he took care to sleep far enough ofF 
on the night after), and also by an old red-brick hall standing at the 
end of an old chace or terrace-avenue, that runs for about a mile 
down to the house, and finishes at a moat towards the road. But as 
the coach arrives near Drogheda, and in the boulevards of that town, 
all resemblance to England is lost. Up hill and down, we pass low 
rows of filthy cabins in dirty undulations. Parents are at the cabin- 
doors dressing the hair of ragged children ; shock-heads of girls peer 
out from the black circumference of smoke, and children incon- 
ceivably filthy yell wildly and vociferously as the coach passes by. 
One little ragged savage rushed furiously up the hill, speculating upon 
permission to put on the drag-chain at descending, and hoping for a 
halfpenny reward. He put on the chain, but the guard did not give 
a halfpenny. I flung him one, and the boy rushed wildly after the 
carriage, holding it up with joy. " The man inside has given me 
one," says he, holding it up exultingly to the guard. I flung out 
another (by-the-by, and without any prejudice, the halfpence in Ireland 
are smaller than those of England), but when the child got this half- 
penny, small as it was, it seemed to overpower him : the Httle man's 
look of gratitude was worth a great deal more than the biggest penny 
ever struck. 

The town itself, which I had three-quarters of an hour to ramble 
through, is smoky, dirty, and lively. There was a great bustle in the 
black Main Street, and several good shops, though some of the houses 
were in a half state of ruin, and battered shutters closed many of the 
windows where formerly had been " emporiums," " repositories," and 
other grandly-titled abodes of small commerce. Exhortations to 
"repeal" were liberally plastered on the blackened walls, proclaiming 
some past or promised visit of the '* great agitator." From the bridge 
is a good bustling spectacle of the river and the craft ; the quays were 
grimy with the discharge of the coal-vessels that lay alongside them ; 
the warehouses were not less black ; the seamen and porters loitering 
on the quay were as swarthy as those of Puddledock ; numerous 



THE "GREAT MERCY'' AT DROGHEDA. 267 

factories and chimneys were vomiting huge clouds of black smoke : the 
commerce of the town is stated by the Guide-book to be considerable, 
and increasing of late years. Of one part of its manufactures every 
traveller must speak with gratitude — of the ale namely, which is as 
good as the best brewed in the sister kingdom. Drogheda ale is to be 
drunk all over Ireland in the bottled state : candour calls for the 
acknowledgment that it is equally praiseworthy in draught. And 
while satisfying himself of this fact, the philosophic observer cannot 
but ask why ale should not be as good elsewhere as at Drogheda : is 
the water of the Boyne the only water in Ireland whereof ale can be 
made ? 

Above the river and craft, and the smoky quays of the town, the 
hills rise abruptly, up which innumerable cabins clamber. On one 
of them, by a church, is a round tower, or fort, with a flag : the church 
is the successor of one battered down by Cromwell in 1649, in his 
frightful siege of the place. The place of one of his batteries is still 
marked outside the town, and known as " Cromwell's Mount : " 
here he "made the breach assaultable, and, by the help of God, 
stormed it." He chose the strongest point of the defence for his 
attack. 

After being twice beaten back, by the divine assistance he was 
enabled to succeed in a third assault : he " knocked on the head " all 
the officers of the garrison ; he gave orders that none of the men 
should be spared. " I think," says he, ^' that night we put to the 
sword two thousand men ; and one hundred of them having taken 
possession of St. Peter's steeple and a round tower next the gate, 
called St. Sunday's, I ordered the steeple of St. Peter's to be fired, 
when one in the flames was heard to say, * God confound me, I burn, 
I burn ! ' ^ The Lord General's history of " this great mercy vouch- 
safed to us " concludes with appropriate religious reflections ; and 
prays Mr. Speaker of the House of Commons to remember that "it is 
good that God alone have all the glory." Is not the recollection of 
this butchery almost enough to make an Irishman turn rebel .^ 

When troops marched over the bridge, a young friend of mine 
(whom I shrewdly suspected to be an Orangeman in his heart) told 
me that their bands played the " Boyne Water." Here is another 
legend of defeat for the Irishman to muse upon ; and here it was, too, 
that King Richard II. received the homage of four Irish kings, who 
flung their skenes or daggers at his feet and knelt to him, and were 
wonder-stricken by the richness of his tents and the garments of his 
knights and ladies. I think it is in Lingard that the story is told ; 



268 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

and the antiquarian has no doubt seen that beautiful old manuscript 
at the British Museum where these yellow-mantled warriors are seen 
riding down to the King, splendid in his forked beard, and peaked 
shoes, and long dangling scolloped sleeves and embroidered gown. 

The Boyne winds picturesquely round two sides of the town, and 
following it, we came to the Linen Hall, — in the days of the linen 
manufacture a place of note, now the place where Mr. O'Connell 
harangues the people ; but all the windows of the house were barri- 
caded when we passed it, and of linen or any other sort of merchandise 
there seemed to be none. Three boys were running past it with a 
mouse tied to a string and a dog galloping after ; two little children 
were paddling down the street, one saying to the other, " Once I had 
a halfpenny, and bought apples with it," The barges were lying lazily 
on the river, on the opposite side of which was a wood of a gentleman's 
domain, over which the rooks were cawing ; and by the shore were 
some ruins — "where Mr. Ball once had his kennel of hounds"— 
touching reminiscence of former prosperity ! 

There is a very large and ugly Roman Catholic chapel in the 
town, and a smaller one of better construction : it was so crowded, 
however, although on a week-day, that we could not pass beyond the 
chapel-yard — where were great crowds of people, some praying, some 
talking, some buying and selling. There were two or three stalls in 
the yard, such as one sees near continental churches, presided over 
by old women, with a store of little brass crucifixes, beads, books, 
and benitiers for the faithful to purchase. The church is large and 
commodious within, and looks (not like all other churches in Ireland) 
as if it were frequented. There is a hideous stone monument in the 
churchyard representing two corpses half rotted away : time or neglect 
had battered away the inscription, nor could we see the dates of some 
older tombstones in the ground, which were mouldering away in the 
midst of nettles and rank grass on the wall. 

By a large public school of some reputation, where a hundred 
boys were educated (my young guide the Orangeman was one of 
them : he related with much glee how, on one of the Liberator's 
visits, a schoolfellow had waved a blue and orange flag from the 
window and cried, " King William for ever, and to hell with the 
Pope !"), there is a fine old gate leading to the river, and in excellent 
preservation, in spite of time and Oliver Cromwell. It is a good 
specimen of Irish architecture. By this time that exceiedingly slow 
coach the " Newry Lark " had arrived at that exceedingly filthy inn 
where the mail had dropped us an hour before. An enormous 



A BEGGAR-WOMAN'S WIT. 269 

Englishman was holding a vain combat of wit with a brawny, grinning 
beggar-woman at the door. " There's a clever gentleman," says the 
beggar-woman. " Sure he'll give me something." " How much 
should you like.-*" says the Englishman, with playful jocularity. 
" Musha," says she, "many a littler man nor you has given me a 
shilling." The coach drives away ; the lady had clearly the best of 
the joking-match ; but I did not see, for all that, that the Englishman 
gave her a single farthing. 

From Castle Bellingham— as famous for ale as Drogheda, and 
remarkable hkewise for a still better thing than ale, an excellent 
resident proprietress, whose fine park lies by the road, and by whose 
care and taste the village has been rendered one of the most neat and 
elegant I have yet seen in Ireland— the road to Dundalk is exceed- 
ingly picturesque, and the traveller has the pleasure of feasting his eyes 
with the noble line of Mourne Mountains, which rise before him while 
he journeys over a level country for several miles. The " Newry Lark," 
to be sure, disdained to take advantage of the easy roads to accelerate 
its movements in any way ; but the aspect of the country is so pleasant 
that one can afford to loiter over it. The fields were yellow with the 
stubble of the corn— which in this, one of the chief corn counties of 
Ireland, had just been cut down ; and a long straggling line of neat 
farm-houses and cottages runs almost the whole way from Castle 
Bellingham to Dundalk. For nearly a couple of miles of the distance, 
the road runs along the picturesque flat called Lurgan Green ; and 
gentlemen's residences and parks are numerous along the road, and 
one seems to have come amongst a new race of people, so trim are the 
cottages, so neat the gates and hedges, in this peaceful, smiling district. 
The people, too, show signs of the general prosperity. A national- school 
had just dismissed its female scholars as we passed through Dunlar ; 
and though the children had most of them bare feet, their clothes were 
good and clean, their faces rosy and bright, and their long hair as shiny 
and as nicely combed as young ladies' need to be. Numerous old 
castles and towers stand on the road here and there ; and long before 
we entered Dundalk we had a sight of a huge factory-chimney in the 
town, and of the dazzling white walls of the Roman Catholic church 
lately erected there. The cabin- suburb is not great, and the entrance 
to the town is much adorned by the hospital — a handsome Elizabethan 
building — and a row of houses of a similar architectural style which 
lie on the left of the traveller. 



T]0 



JHE IRISH SKETCH BOOK, 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

DUXDALK. 



HE stranger can't fail to be 
struck with the look of Dun- 
dalk, as he has been with the 
villages and country leading to 
;t,when contrasted with places 
in the South and West of 
Ireland. The coach stopped 
at a cheerful-looking Place, of 
which almost the only dilapi- 
dated mansion was the old inn 
at which it discharged us, and 
which did not hold out much 
prospect of comfort. But in 
justice to the " King's Arms '' 
it must be said that good beds 
and dinners are to be obtained 
there by voyagers ; and if they 
choose to arrive on days when 
his Grace the Most Reverend the Lord Archbishop of Armagh and 
Primate of Ireland is dining with his clergy, the house of course is 
crowded, and the waiters, and the boy who carries in the potatoes, a 
little hurried and flustered. When their reverences were gone, the 
laity were served ; and I have no doubt, from the leg of a duck which 
I got, that the breast and wings must have been very tender. 

Meanwhile the walk was pleasant through the bustling little town. 
A grave old church with a tall copper spire defends one end of the 
Main Street ; and a little way from the inn is the superb new chapel, 
which the architect, Mr. Duff, has copied from King's College Chapel 
in Cambridge. The ornamental part of the interior is not yet com- 
pleted ; but the area of the chapel is spacious and noble, and three 
handsome altars of scagliola (or some composition resembling marble) 
have been erected, of handsome and suitable form. When by the aid 




MR. SHEKELTON'S FACTORY, 271 

of further subscriptions the church shall be completed, it will be one of 
the handsomest places of worship the Roman Cathohcs possess in this 
country. Opposite the chapel stands a neat low black building — the 
gaol : in the middle of the building, and over the doorway, is an omi- 
nous balcony and window, with an iron beam overhead. Each end of 
the beam is ornamented with a grinning iron skull ! Is this the 
hanging-place ? and do these grinning cast-iron skulls facetiously 
explain the business for which the beam is there t For shame ! for 
shame ! Such disgusting emblems ought no longer to disgrace a 
Christian land. If kill we must, let us do so with as much despatch 
and decency as possible,— not brazen out our misdeeds and perpetuate 
them in this frightful satiric way. 

A far better cast-iron emblem stands over a handsome shop in the 
" Place '' hard by— a plough namely, which figures over the factory of 
Mr. Shekelton, whose industry and skill seem to have brought the 
greatest benefit to his fellow-townsmen— of whom he employs numbers 
in his foundries and workshops. This gentleman was kind enough to 
show me through his manufactories, where all sorts of iron-works are 
made, from a steam-engine to a door-key ; and I saw everything to 
admire, and a vast deal more than I could understand, in the busy, 
cheerful, orderly, bustling, clanging place. Steam-boilers were ham- 
mered here, and pins made by a hundred busy hands in a manufactory 
above. There was the engine-room, where the monster was whirring 
his ceaseless wheels and directing the whole operations of the factory, 
fanning the forges, turning the drills, blasting into the pipes of the 
smelting-houses : he had a house to himself, from which his orders 
issued to the different establishments round about. One machine was 
quite awful to me, a gentle cockney, not used to such things : it was an 
iron-devourer, a wretch with huge jaws and a narrow mouth, ever 
opening and shutting— opening and shutting. You put a half-inch 
iron plate between his jaws, and they shut not a whit slower or quicker 
than before, and bit through the iron as if it were a sheet of paper. 
Below the monster's mouth was a punch that performed its duties with 
similar dreadful calmness. 

I was so lucky as to have an introduction to the Vicar of Dundalk, 
which that gentleman's kind and generous nature interpreted into a 
claim for unhmited hospitality ; and he was good enough to consider 
himself bound not only to receive me, but to give up previous engage- 
ments abroad in order to do so. I need not say that it afforded me 
sincere pleasure to witness, for a couple of days, his labours among his 
people ; and indeed it was a delightful occupation to watch both Hock 



272 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

and pastor. The world is a wicked, selfish, abominable place, as the 
parson tells us ; but his reverence comes out of his pulpit and gives the 
flattest contradiction to his doctrine : busying himself with kind actions 
from morning till night, denying to himself, generous to others, 
preaching the truth to young and old, clothing the naked, feeding the 
hungry, consohng the wretched, and giving hope to the sick ; — and I 
do not mean to say that this sort of hfe is led by the Vicar of Dundalk 
merely, but do firmly believe that it is the life of the great majority of 
the Protestant and Roman Catholic clergy of the country. There will 
be no breach of confidence, I hope, in publishing here the journal of a 
couple of days spent with one of these reverend gentlemen, and telling 
some readers, as idle and profitless as the writer, what the clergyman's 
peaceful labours are. 

In the first place, we set out to visit the church — the comfortable 
copper-spired old edifice that was noticed two pages back. It stands 
in a green churchyard of its own, very neat and trimly kept, wdth an 
old row of trees that were dropping their red leaves upon a flock of 
vaults and tombstones below. The building being much injured by 
flame and time, some hundred years back was repaired, enlarged, 
and ornamented— as churches in those days were ornamented — and 
has consequently lost a good deal of its Gothic character. There is 
a great mixture, therefore, of old style and new style and no style : 
but, with all this, the church is one of the most commodious and 
best appointed I have seen in Ireland. The vicar held a council 
with a builder regarding some ornaments for the roof of the church, 
which is, as it should be, a great object of his care and architectural 
taste, and on which he has spent a very large sum of money. To 
these expenses he is in a manner bound, for the living is a consider- 
able one, its income being no less than two hundred and fifty pounds 
a year ; out of which he has merely to maintain a couple of curates 
and a clerk and sexton, to contribute largely towards schools and 
hospitals, and reUeve a few scores of pensioners of his own, who are 
fitting objects of private bounty. 

We went from the church to a school, which has been long a 
favourite resort of the good vicar's : indeed, to judge from the school- 
master's books, his attendance there is almost daily, and the number 
of the scholars some two hundred. The number was considerably 
greater until the schools of the Educational Board were established, 
when the Roman Catholic clergymen withdrew many of their young 
people from Mr. Thackeray's establishment. 

We found a large room with sixty or seventy boys at work ; in an 



DUNDALK INFANT-SCHOOL. 272, 

upper chamber were a considerable number of girls, with their 
teachers, two modest and pretty young women ; but the favourite 
resort of the vicar was evidently the Infant-School, — and no wonder : 
it is impossible to witness a more beautiful or touching sight. 

Eighty of these little people, healthy, clean, and rosy — some in 
smart gowns and shoes and stockings, some with patched pinafores 
and little bare pink feet — sate upon a half-dozen low benches, and 
were singing, at the top of their fourscore fresh voices, a song when 
we entered. All the voices were hushed as the vicar came in, and a 
great bobbing and curtseying took place ; whilst a hundred and sixty 
innocent eyes turned awfully towards the clergyman, who tried to 
look as unconcerned as possible, and began to make his little ones a 
speech. " I have brought," says he, " a gentleman from England, 
who has heard of my little children and their school, and hopes he 
will carry away a good account of it. Now, you know, we must all 
do our best to be kind and civil to strangers : what can we do here 
for this gentleman that he would like ? — do you think he would like 
a song?" 

{All the children:)—'' We'll sing to him ! " 

Then the schoolmistress, coming forward, sang the first words of 
a hymn, which at once eighty little voices took up, or near eighty — 
for some of the little things were too young to sing yet, and all they 
could do was to beat the measure with little red hands as the others 
sang. It was a hymn about heaven, with a chorus of " Oh that will 
be joyful, joyful," and one of the verses beginning, " Little children 
will be there." Some of my fair readers (if I have the honour to 
find such) who have been present at similar tender, charming concerts, 
know the hymn, no doubt. It was the first time I had ever heard it ; 
and I do not care to own that it brought tears to my eyes, though it 
is ill to parade such kind of sentiment in print. But I think I will 
never, while I live, forget that little chorus, nor would any man who 
has ever loved a child or lost one. God bless you, O little happy 
singers ! What a noble and useful life is his, who, in place of seek- 
ing wealth or honour, devotes his life to such a service as this ! And 
all through our country, thank God ! in quiet humble corners, that 
busy citizens and men of the world never hear of, there are thousands 
of such men employed in such holy pursuits, with no reward beyond 
that which the fulfilment of duty brings them. Most of these 
children were Roman Catholics. At this tender age the priests do 
not care to separate them from their little Protestant brethren : and 

T 



274 



THE IRISH ^SKETCH BOOK. 



no wonder. He must be a child-murdering Herod who would find 
the heart to do so. 

After the hymn, the children went through a little Scripture cate- 
chism, answering ver}^ correctly, and all in a breath, as the mistress 
put the questions. Some of them were, of course, too young to 
understand the words they uttered ; but the answers are so simple 
that they cannot fail to understand them before long ; and they learn 
in spite of themselves. 

The catechism being ended, another song was sung ; and now 
the vicar (who had been humming the chorus along with his young 
singers, and, in spite of an awful and grave countenance, could not 
help showing his extreme happiness) made another oration, in which 
he stated that the gentleman from England was perfectly satisfied ; 
that he would have a good report of the Dundalk children to carry 
home with him ; that the day was very fine, and the schoolmistress 
would probably like to take a walk ; and, finally, would the young 
people give her a holiday.^ "As many," concluded he, "as will 
give the schoolmistress a holiday, hold up their hands ! " This ques- 
tion was carried unanimously. 




But I am bound to say, when the little people were told that as 
many as would7it like a holiday were to hold up their hands, all the 
iittle hands went up again exactly as before : by which it may be 
concluded either that the infants did not understand his reverence's 
speech, or that they were just as happy to stay at school as to go and 
play : and the reader may adopt whichever of the reasons he inclines 
to. It is probable that both are correct. 

The little things are so fond of the school, the vicar told me as 



A CONVERSION, 275 

we walked away from it, that on returning home they like nothing 
better than to get a number of their companions who don't go to 
school, and to play at infant-school. 

They may be heard singing theii hymns in the narrow alleys and 
humble houses in v/hich they dwell : and I was told of one dying 
who sang his song of "' Oh that will be joyful, joyful," to his poor 
mother weeping at his bedside, and promising her that they should 
meet where no parting should be. 

'•There was a child in the school," said the vicar, "whose father, 
a Roman Catholic, was a carpenter by trade, a good workman, and 
earning a considerable weekly sum, but neglecting his wife and 
children and spending his earnings in drink. We have a song 
against drunkenness that the infants sing ; and one evening, going 
home, the child found her father excited with liquor and ill-treating 
his wife. The little thing forthwith interposed between them, told 
her father what she had heard at school regarding the criminality of 
drunkenness and quarrelling, and finished her little sermon with the 
hymn. The father was first amused, then touched ; and the end of 
it was that he kissed his wife, and asked her to forgive him, hugged 
his child, and from that day would always have her in his bed, made 
her sing to him morning and night and forsook his old haunts for the 
sake of his little companion." 

He was quite sober and prosperous for eight months ; but the 
vicar at the end of that time began to remark that the child looked 
ragged at school, and passing by her mother's house, saw the poor 
woman with a black eye. "If it was any one but your husband, 

Mrs. C , who gave you that black eye," says the vicar, " tell me ; 

but if he did it, don't say a word." The woman was silent, and soon 
after, meeting her husband, the vicar took him to task. " You were 

sober for eight months. Now tell me fairly, C ," says he, " were 

you happier when you lived at home with your wife and child, or 
are you more happy now ? " The man owned that he was much 
happier formerly, and the end of the conversation was that he 
promised to go home once more and try the sober life again, and he 
went home and succeeded. 

The vicar continued to hear good accounts of him ; but passing 
one day by his house he saw the wife there looking very sad. " Had 
her husband relapsed?" — " No, he was dead," she said — "dead of the 
cholera ; but he had been sober ever since his last conversation 
with the clergyman, and had done his duty to his family up to 
the time of his death." " I said to the woman," said the good old 

T 2 



2/6 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

clergyman, in a grave low voice, " ' Your husband is gone now to the 
place where, according to his conduct here, his eternal reward will 
be assigned him ; and let us be thankful to think what a different 
position he occupies now to that which he must have held had not 
his little girl been the means under God of converting him.' " 

Our next walk was to the County Hospital, the handsome edifice 
which ornaments the Drogheda entrance of the town, and which I 
had remarked on my arrival. Concerning this hospital, the governors 
were, when I passed through Dundalk, in a state of no small agitation : 

for a gentleman by the name of , who, from being an apothecary's 

assistant in the place, had gone forth as a sort of amateur inspector 
of hospitals throughout Ireland, had thought fit to censure their 
extravagance in erecting the new building, stating that the old one 
was fully sufficient to hold fifty patients, and that the public money- 
might consequently have been spared. Mr. 's plan for the 

better maintenance of them in general is, that commissioners should 
be appointed to direct them, and not county gentlemen as heretofore ; 
the discussion of which question does not need to be carried on in this 
humble work. 

My guide, who is one of the governors of the new hospital, con- 
ducted me in the first place to the old one — a small dirty house in 
a damp and low situation, with but three rooms to accommodate 
patients, and these evidently not fit to hold fifty, or even fifteen 
patients. The new hospital is one of the handsomest buildings of 
the size and kind in Ireland — an ornament to the town, as the angry 
commissioner stated, but not after all a building of undue cost, for 
the expense of its erection was but 3,000/. ; and the sick of the county 
are far better accommodated in it than in the damp and unwholesome 
tenement regretted by the eccentric commissioner. 

An English architect, Mr. Smith of Hertford, designed and com- 
pleted the edifice ; strange to say, only exceeding his estimates by 
the sum of three-and-sixpence, as the worthy governor of the hospital 
with great triumph told me. The building is certainly a wonder of 
cheapness, and, what is more, so complete for the purpose for which 
it was intended, and so handsome in appearance, that the architect's 
name deserves to be published by all who hear it ; and if any country- 
newspaper editors should notice this volume, they are requested to 
make the fact known. The house is provided with every convenience 
for men and women, with all the appurtenances of baths, water, gas, 
airy wards, and a garden for convalescents ; and, below, a dispensary, 
a handsome board-room, kitchen, and matron's apartments, &c. 



DUNDALK INSTITUTION. 277 

Indeed, a noble requiring a house for a large establishment need not 
desire a handsomer one than this, at its moderate price of 3,000/. 
The beauty of this building has, as is almost always the case, created 
emulation, and a terrace in the same taste has been raised in the 
neighbourhood of the hospital. 

From the hospital we bent our steps to the Institution ; of which 
place I give below the rules, and a copy of the course of study, and 
the dietary : leaving English parents to consider the fact, that their 
children can be educated at this place for thirteen poimds a year. 
Nor is there anything in the establishment savouring of the Dothe- 
boys Hall.* I never saw, in any public school in England, sixty 
cleaner, smarter, more gentlemanlike boys than were here at work. 
The upper class had been at work on Euchd as we came in, and 
were set, by way of amusing the stranger, to perform a sum of com- 
pound interest of diabolical complication, which, with its algebraic 
and arithmetic solution, was handed up to me by three or four of the 
pupils ; and I strove to look as wise as I possibly could. Then they 
went through questions of mental arithmetic with astonishing cor- 
rectness and facility ; and finding from the master that classics were 
not taught in the school, I took occasion to lament this circumstance, 
saying, with a knowing air, that I would like to have examined the 
lads in a Greek play. 

Classics, then, these young fellows do not get. Meat they get but 
twice a week. Let English parents bear this fact in mind ; but that 
the lads are healthy and happy, anybody who sees them can have 

* "Boarders are received from the age of eight to fourteen at 12/. per 
annum, and i/. for washing paid quarterly in advance. 

"Day scholars are received from the age of ten to twelve at 2/., paid 
quarterly in advance. 

" The Incorporated Society have abundant cause for believing that the in- 
troduction of Boarders into their Establishments has produced far more advan- 
tageous results to the public than they could, at so early a period, have 
anticipated ; and that the election of boys to their Foundations onty after a fair 
competition with others of a given district, has had the effect of stimulating 
masters and scholars to exertion and study, and promises to operate most 
beneficially for the advancement of religious and general knowledge. 

" The districts for eligible Candidates are as follow : — 

"Dundalk Institution embraces the counties of Louth and Down, because 
the properties which support it lie in this district. 

"The Pococke Institution, Kilkenny, embraces the counties of Kilkenny 
and Waterford, for the same cause. 

"The Ranelagh Institution, the towns of Athlone and Roscommon, and 



-78 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



no question ; furthermore, they are well instructed in a sound practical 
education — history, geography, mathematics, religion. What a place 
to know of would this be for many a poor half-pay officer, where he 
may put his children in all confidence that they will be well cared 
for and soundly educated ! Why have we not State-schools in 

three districts in the counties of Galway and Roscommon, which the In- 
corporated Society hold in fee, or from which they receive impropriate tithes. 

(Signed) " C^SAR Otway, Secretary.''' 



Arrangement of ScJwol Business in Dimdalk Institution. 



Hours. 



6 to 7 



7 . 


. 7i 


ll , 


. 8^ 


8i , 


' 9 


9 . 


, lO 


10 , 


, loi 


loi , 


,"i 


ttI 





Monday, Wednesday, 
and Friday. 



8i 



„ 2i 

„ 5 

„ 7i 

„ 8 

„ 8i 

., 9 

9 



Rise^ wash, &c. 
f Scripture by the 
( Master, and prayer. 

Reading, History, S:c. 

Brealcfast. 

Play. 

English Grammar. 

Algebra. 

Scripture. 

Writing. 
f Arithmetic ?t Desks, 
\ and Book-keeping. 

Dinner. 

Play. 
/ Spelling, Mental 
\ Arithmetic, and 
I Euclid. 

Supper. 

Exercise. 
f Scripture by the 
< Master, and prayer 
( in School- room. 

Retire to bed. 



Tuesday and Thursday. 



Rise, wash, &c. 
f Scripture by the 
1 Master, and prayer. 

Reading, History, &c. 

Breakfast. 

Play. 

Geography. 

Euclid. 
f Lecture on principles 
t of Arithmetic. 

Writing. 

Mensuraiion. 

I Dinner. 

i Play. 

I i Spelling, Mental 

' \ Arithmetic, and 

i i Euclid. 

j .Supper. 

> Exercise. 



( Scripture 
iNIaster, 



by the 
and prayer 



i in School-room. 
Retire to bed. 



Saturday. 



Rise, wash, &c. 
f Scripture by the INIaster, 
( and prayer. | 

Reading, History, &c. 

Breakfast. 

Play. 

ID to II, Repetition. 

II to 12, Use of Globes. 

[ 12 to I, Catechism and ' 
-j .Scripture by the Cate- 
(. chist. ; 

Dinner, 
f The remainder of this ! 
I day is devoted to ex- i 
I ercise till the hour of 

Supper,after which the ; 
I Bojj^s assemble in the ; 
School-room and hear ; 
a portion of Scripture I 
read and explained by [ 
the Master, as on | 
other days, and con- I 
elude with 



prayer. 



The sciences of Navigation and practical Survej^ing are taught in the Establishment, also 
a selection of the Pupils, who have a taste for it, are instructed in the art of drawing. 



Dicta;y. ^^ , 

Breakfast.— Stirabout and Milk, every Morning. ' ; 

Dinner. — On Sunday and Wedne.sday, Potatoes and Beef; lo ounces of the latter to I 

each boy. On Monday and Thursday, Bread and Broth ; i lb. of the former to each bo}'. ( 
On Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday, Potatoes and Milk ; 2 lbs. of the former to each boy. 

Supi'EK. — \ lb. of Bread with ISIilk, uniformly, except on Monday and Thursday : on 

these days. Potatoes and Milk. I 



LOUTH. i-jc) 

England, where, for the prime cost — for a sum which never need 
exceed for a young boy's maintenance 25/. a year — our children 
might be brought up ? We are establishing national-schools for the 
labourer : why not give education to the sons of the poor gentry — the 
clergyman whose pittance is small, and would still give his son 
the benefit of a public education ; the artist, the officer, the merchant's 
office-clerk, the literary man ? What a benefit might be conferred 
upon all of us if honest charter-schools could be established for our 
children, and where it would be impossible for Squeers to make a 
profit ! * 

Our next day's journey led us, by half-past ten o'clock, to the 
ancient town of Louth, a little poor village now, but a great seat of 
learning and piety, it is said, formerly, where there stood a university 
and abbeys, and where Saint Patrick worked wonders. Here my 
kind friend the rector was called upon to marry a smart sergeant of 
police to a pretty lass, one of the few Protestants who attend his 
church ; and, the ceremony over, we were invited to the house of the 
bride's father hard by, where the clergyman was bound to cut the cake 
and drink a glass of wine to the health of the new-married couple. 
There was evidently to be a dance and some merriment in the course 
of the evening; for the good mother of the bride (oh, blessed is he who 
has a good mother-in-law !) was busy at a huge fire in the little 
kitchen, and along the road we met various parties of neatly- 
dressed people, and several of the sergeant's comrades, who were 
hastening to the wedding. The mistress of the rector's darling Infant- 
School was one of the bridesmaids : consequently the little ones liad a 
holiday. 

But he was not to be disappointed of his Infant-School in this 
manner : so, mounting the car again, with a fresh horse, we went 
a very pretty drive of three miles to the snug lone school-house 
of Glyde Farm — near a handsome park, I believe of the same 
name, where the proprietor is building a mansion of the Tudor 
order. 

The pretty scene of Dundalk was here played over again : the 
children sang their little hymns, the good old clergyman joined 

* The Proprietary Schools of late established have gone far to protect the 
interests of parents and children ; but the masters of these schools take boarders, 
and of course draw profits from them. Why make the learned man a beef-and- 
mutton contractor ? It would be easy to arrange the economy of a school so 
that there should be no possibility of a want of confidence, or of peculation, to 
the detriment of the pupil. 



2So THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

delighted in the chorus, the hohday was given, and the httle hands 
held up, and I looked at more clean bright faces and little rosy 
feet. The scene need not be repeated in print, but I can under- 
stand what pleasure a man must take in the daily witnessing of it, 
and in the growth of these little plants, which are se>t and tended 
by his care. As we returned to Louth, a woman met us with a 
curtsey and expressed her sorrow that she had been obliged to 
withdraw her daughter from one of the rector's schools, which the 
child was vexed at leaving too. But the orders of the priest were 
peremptory; and who can say they were unjust? The priest, on his 
side, was only enforcing the rule which the parson maintains as his : 
— the latter will not permit his young flock to be educated except upon 
certain principles and by certain teachers ; the former has his own 
scruples unfortunately also — and so that noble and brotherly scheme 
of National Education falls to the ground. In Louth, the national- 
school was standing by the side of the priest's chapel : it is so almost 
everywhere throughout Ireland : the Protestants have rejected, on 
very good motives doubtless, the chance of union which the Education 
Board gave them. Be it so ! if the children of either sect be edu- 
cated apart, so that they be educated, the education scheme will have 
produced its good, and the union will come afterwards. 

The church at Louth stands boldly upon a hill looking down on the 
village, and has nothing remarkable in it but neatness, except the 
monument of a former rector, Dr. Little, which attracts the spectator's 
attention from the extreme inappropriateness of the motto on the coat- 
of-arms of the reverend defunct. It looks rather unorthodox to read 
in a Christian temple, where a man's bones have the honour to lie — 
and where, if anywhere, humility is requisite — that there is miUtiim in 
Parvo : " a great deal in Little." O Little, in life you were not much, 
and lo ! you are less now ; why should filial piety engrave that pert 
pun upon your monument, to cause people to laugh in a place where 
they ought to be grave ? The defunct doctor built a very handsome 
rectory-house, with a set of stables that would be useful to a nobleman, 
but are rather too commodious for a peaceful rector who does not ride 
to hounds ; and it was in Little's time, I beheve, that the church was 
removed from the old abbey, where it formerly stood, to its present 
proud position on the hill. 

The abbey is a fine ruin, the windows of a good style, the tracings 
of carvings on many of them ; but a great number of stones and 
ornaments were removed formerly to build farm-buildings withal, 
and the place is now as rank and ruinous as the generality of Irish 



A PETITIONER. 281 

burying-places seem to be. Skulls lie in clusters amongst nettle- 
beds by the abbey-walls ; graves are only partially covered with rude 
stones ; a fresh coffin was lying broken in pieces within the abbey ; 
and the surgeon of the dispensary hard by might procure subjects 
here almost without grave-breaking. Hard by the abbey is a 
building of which I beg leave to offer the following interesting 
sketch. 















The legend in the country goes that the place was built for the 
accommodation of " Saint Murtogh," who lying down to sleep here 
in the open fields, not having any place to house under, found to his 
surprise, on waking in the morning, the above edifice, which the 
angels had built. The angelic architecture, it will be seen, is of 
rather a rude kind ; and the village antiquary, who takes a pride in 
showing the place, says that the building was erected two thousand 
years ago. In the handsome grounds of the rectory is another spot 
visited by popular tradition — a fairy's ring : a regular mound of some 
thirty feet in height, flat and even on the top, and provided with a 
winding path for the foot-passengers to ascend. Some trees grew on 
the mound, one of which was removed in order to make the walk. 
But the country-people cried out loudly at this desecration, and 
vowed that the " little people " had quitted the countryside for ever in 
consequence. 

While walking in the town, a woman meets the rector with a 
number of curtsies and compliments, and vows that " 'tis your rever- 
ence is the friend of the poor, and may the Lord preserve you to us 
and lady ; " and having poured out blessings innumerable, concludes 
by producing a paper for her son that's in throuble in England. The 
paper ran to the effect that " We, the undersigned, inhabitants of the 
parish of Louth, have known Daniel Horgan ever since his youth, 
and can speak confidently as to his integrity, piety, and good 
conduct." In fact, the paper stated that Daniel Horgan was an 
honour to his country, and consequently quite incapable of the 
crime of— sack-stealing I think — with which at present he was 



282 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

charged, and lay in prison in Durham Castle. The paper had, I 
should think, coaie down to the poor mother from Durham, with a 
direction ready written to despatch it back again when signed, and 
was evidently the work of one of those benevolent individuals in assize- 
towns, who, following the profession of the law, delight to extricate 
unhappy young men of whose innocence (from various six-and- 
eightpenny motives) they feel convinced. There stood the poor 
mother, as the rector examined the document, with a huge wafer in 
her hand, ready to forward it so soon as it was signed : for the truth 
is that " We, the undersigned," were as yet merely imaginary. 

" You don't come to church," says the rector. " I know nothing 
of you or your son : why don't you go to the priest ? " 

" Oh, your reverence, my son's to be tried next Tuesday," 
whimpered the woman. She then said the priest was not in the way, 
but, as we had seen him a few minutes before, recalled the assertion, 
and confessed that she had been to the priest and that he would not 
sign ; and fell to prayers, tears, and unbounded suppHcations to induce 
the rector to give his signature. But that hard-hearted divine, stating 
that he had 7iot known Daniel H organ from his youth upwards, that he 
could not certify as to his honesty or dishonesty, enjoined the woman 
to make an attempt upon the R. C. curate, to whose hand-writing he 
would certify if need were. 

The upshot of the matter was that the woman returned with a cer- 
tificate from the R. C. curate as to her son's good behaviour while in 
the village, and the rector certified that the hand-writing was that of 
the R. C. clergyman in question, and the woman popped her big red 
wafer into the letter and went her way. 

Tuesday is passed long ere this : Mr. Horgan's guilt or innocence 
is long since clearly proved, and he celebrates the latter in freedom, 
or expiates the former at the mill. Indeed, I don't know that there 
was any call to introduce his adventures to the pubHc, except perhaps 
it may be good to see how in this little distant Irish village the blood 
of life is running. Here goes a happy party to a marriage, and the 
parson prays a " God bless you ! " upon them, and the world begins 
for them. Yonder lies a stall-fed rector in his tomb, flaunting over his 
nothingness his pompous heraldic motto : and yonder lie the fresh 
fragments of a nameless deal coffin, which any foot may kick over. 
Presently you hear the clear voices of little children praising God ; and 
here comes a mother wringing her hands and asking for succour for 
her lad, who was a child but the other day. Such mot us aiii7noriivi 






THE NEW ROAD TO DUNDALK. 283 

atque hcBC certamUia tanta are going on in an hour of an October day 
in a little pinch of clay in the county Louth. 

Perhaps, being in the moralizing strain, the honest surgeon at the 
dispensary might come in as an illustration. He inhabits a neat 
humble house, a storey higher than his neighbours', but with a thatched 
roof. He relieves a thousand patients yearly at the dispensary, he 
visits seven hundred in the parish, he supplies the medicines gratis ; 
and receiving for these services the sum of about one hundred pounds 
yearly, some county economists and calculators are loud against the 
extravagance of his salary, and threaten his removal. All these indi- 
viduals and their histories we presently turn our backs upon, for, after 
all, dinner is at five o'clock, and we have to see the new road to Dun- 
dalk, which the county has lately been making. 

Of this undertaking, which shows some skilful engineering — some 
gallant cutting of rocks and hills, and filling of valleys, with a tall and 
handsome stone bridge thrown across the river, and connecting the 
high embankments on which the new road at that place is formed — 
I can say Httle, except that it is a vast convenience to the county, and 
a great credit to the surveyor and contractor too ; for the latter, though 
a poor man, and losing heavily by his bargain, has yet refused to mulct 
his labourers of their wages ; and, as cheerfully as he can, still pays 
them their shilling a day. 



284 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 



NEWRY, ARMAGH, BELFAST— FROM DUNDALK TO NEWRY. 



Y kind host gave orders to the 
small ragged boy that drove 
the car to take "particular 
care of the little gentleman ;" 
and the car-boy, grinning in 
appreciation of the joke, 
drove off at his best pace, 
and landed his cargo at 
Newry after a pleasant two 
hours' drive. The country 
for the most part is wild, but 
not gloomy ; the mountains 
round about are adorned 
with woods and gentlemen's 
seats ; and the car-boy 
pointed out one hill — that 
of Slievcgullion, which kept 
us company all the way — as 
the highest hill in Ireland. Ignorant or deceiving car-boy ! I have 
seen a dozen hills, each the highest in Ireland, in my way through the 
country, of which the inexorable Guide-book gives the measurement 
and destroys the claim. Well, it was the tallest hill, in the estimation 
of the car-boy ; and in this respect the world is full of car-boys. Has 
not every mother of a family a Slievcgullion of a son, who, according 
to her measurement, towers above all other sons .'' Is not the patriot, 
who believes himself equal to three Frenchmen, a car-boy in heart ? 
There was a kind young creature, with a child in her lap, that 
evidently held this notion. She paid the child a series of compli- 
ments, which would have led one to fancy he was an angel from 
heaven at the least ; and her husband sat gravely by, very silent, with 
his arms round a barometer. 

Beyond these there were no incidents or characters of note, except 




NEIVJ^V. 285 

an old ostler that they said was ninety years old, and watered the 
horse at a lone inn on the road. " Stop ! " cries this wonder of years 
and rags, as the car, after considerable parley, got under weigh. The 
car-boy pulled up, thinking a fresh passenger was coming out of the 
inn. 

^'' Stop, till one of the ge7itle7ncn gives 7ne something I'' says the old 
man, coming slowly up with us : which speech created a laugh, and got 
him a penny : he received it without the least thankfulness, and went 
away grumbling to his pail. 

Newry is remarkable as being the only town I have seen whicli 
had no cabin suburb : strange to say, the houses begin all at once, 
handsomely coated and hatted with stone and slate ; and if Dundalk 
was prosperous, Newry is better still. Such a sight of neatness and 
comfort is exceedingly welcome to an English traveller, who, more- 
over, finds himself, after driving through a plain busthng clean street, 
landed at a large plain comfortable inn, where business seems to be 
done, where there are smart waiters to receive him, and a comfortable 
warm coffee-room that bears no traces of dilapidation. 

What the merits of the cuisine may be I can't say for the informa- 
tion of travellers ; a gentleman to whom 1 had brought a letter from 
Dundalk taking care to provide me at his own table, accompanying 
me previously to visit the lions of the town. A river divides it, and 
the counties of Armagh and Down : the river runs into the sea at 
Carlingford Bay, and is connected by a canal with Lough Neagh, and 
thus with the North of Ireland. Steamers to Liverpool and Glasgow 
sail continually. There are mills, foundries, and manufactories, of 
which the Guide-book will give particulars; and the town of 13,000 
inhabitants is the busiest and most thriving that I have yet seen in 
Ireland. 

Our first walk was to the church : a large and handsome building, 
although built in the unlucky period when the Gothic style was 
coming into vogue. Hence one must question the propriety of many 
of the ornaments, though the whole is massive, well-finished, and 
stately. Near the church stands the Roman Catholic chapel, a very 
fine building, the work of the same architect, Mr. Duff, who erected 
the chapel at Dundalk ; but, like almost all other edifices of the kind 
in Ireland that I have seen, the interior is quite unfinished, and 
already so dirty and ruinous, that one would think a sort of genius 
for dilapidation must have been exercised in order to bring it to its 
present condition. There are tattered green-baize doors to enter at, 
a dirty clay floor, and cracked plaster walls, with an injunction to the 



286 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

public not to spit on the floor. Maynooth itself is scarcely more 
dreary. The architect's work, however, does him the highest credit : 
the interior of the church is noble and simple in style ; and one can't 
but grieve to see a fine work of ai t, that might have done good to the 
country, so defaced and ruined as this is. 

The Newry poor-house is as neatly ordered and comfortable as 
any house, public or private, in Ireland : the same look of health 
which was so pleasant to see among the Naas children of the union- 
house was to be remarked here : the same care and comfort for the 
old people. Of able-bodied there were but few in the house : it is 
in winter that there are most applicants for this kind of relief ; the 
sunshine attracts the women out of the place, and the harvest relieves 
it of the men. Cleanliness, the matron said, is more intolerable to 
most of the inmates than any other regulation of the house ; and 
instantly on quitting the house they relapse into their darling dirt, and 
of course at their periodical return are subject to the unavoidable 
initiatory lustration. 

Newry has many comfortable and handsome public buildings : the 
streets have a business-like look, the shops and people are not too poor, 
and the southern grandiloquence is not shown here in the shape of fine 
words for small wares. Even the beggars are not so numerous, I 
fancy, or so coaxing and wheedling in their talk. Perhaps, too, among 
the gentry, the same moral change may be remarked, and they seem 
more downright and plain in their manner; but one must not pretend 
to speak of national characteristics from such a small experience as a 
couple of evenings' intercourse may give. 

Although not equal in natural beauty to a hundred other routes 
which the traveller takes in the South, the ride from Newry to 
Armagh is an extremely pleasant one, on account of the undeniable 
increase of prosperity which is visible through the country. Well- 
tilled fields, neat farm-houses, well-dressed people, meet one every- 
where, and people and landscape alike have a plain, hearty, flourishing 
look. 

The greater part of Armagh has the aspect of a good stout old 
English town, although round about the steep on which the cathedral 
stands (the Roman Cathohcs have taken possession of another hill, 
and are building an opposition cathedral on this eminence) there are 
some decidedly Irish streets, and that dismal combination of house and 
pigsty which is so common in Munster and Connaught. 

But the main streets, though not fine, are busthng, substantial, and 
prosperous ; and a fine green has some old trees and some good 



ARMAGH. iZ-j 

houses, and even handsome stately public buildings, round about it, 
that remind one of a comfortable cathedral city across the water. 

The cathedral service is more completely performed here than in 
any English town, I think. The church is small, but extremely neat, 
fresh and handsome — almost too handsome ; covered with spick-and- 
span gilding and carved-work in the style of the thirteenth century ; 
every pew as smart and well-cushioned as my lord's own seat in the 
country church ; and for the clergy and their chief, stalls and thrones 
quite curious for their ornament and splendour. The Primate with his 
blue riband and badge (to whom the two clergymen bow reverently as, 
passing between them, he enters at the gate of the altar rail) looks like 
a noble Prince of the Church ; and I had heard enough of his magni- 
ficent charity and kindness to look with reverence at his lofty hand- 
some features. 

Will it be behoved that the sermon lasted only for twenty minutes ? 
Can this be* Ireland ? I think this wonderful circumstance impressed 
me more than any other with the difference between North and South, 
and, having the Primate's own countenance for the opinion, may con- 
fess a great admiration for orthodoxy in this particular. 

A beautiful monument to Archbishop Stuart, by Chantrey ; a mag- 
nificent stained window, containing the arms of the clergy of the 
diocese (in the very midst of which I was glad to recognize the sober 
old family coat of the kind and venerable rector of Louth), and num- 
berless carvings and decorations, will please the lover of church archi- 
tecture here. I must confess, however, that in my idea the cathedral 
is quite too complete. It is of the twelfth century, but not the least 
venerable. It is as neat and trim as a lady's drawing-room. It wants 
a hundred years at least to cool the raw colours of the stones, and to 
dull the brightness of the gilding : all which benefits, no doubt, time 
will bring to pass, and future Cockneys setting off from London Bridge 
after breakfast in an aerial machine may come to hear the morning ser- 
vice here, and not remark the faults which have struck a too suscepti- 
ble tourist of the nineteenth century. 

Strolling round the town after service, I saw more decided signs 
that Protestantism was there in the ascendant. I saw no less than 
three different ladies on the prowl, dropping religious tracts at various 
doors ; and felt not a little ashamed to be seen by one of them getting 
into a car with bag and baggage, being bound for Belfast. 

The ride of ten miles from Armagh to Portadown was not the 
prettiest, but one of the pleasantest drives I have had in Ireland, for 



288 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

the country is well cultivated along the whole of the road, the trees in 
plenty, and villages and neat houses always in sight. The little farms, 
with their orchards and comfortable buildings, were as clean and trim 
as could be wished : they are mostly of one storey, with long thatched 
roofs and shining windows, such as those that may be seen in 
Normandy and Picardy. As it was Sunday evening, all the people 
seemed to be abroad, some sauntering quietly down the roads, a pair 
of girls here and there pacing leisurely in a field, a little group seated 
under the trees of an orchard, which pretty adjunct to the farm is very 
common in this district ; and the crop of apples seemed this year to 
be e'xtremely plenty. The physiognomy of the people too has quite 
changed : the girls have their hair neatly braided up, not loose over 
their faces as in the south ; and not only are bare feet very rare, and 
stockings extremely neat and white, but I am sure I saw at least a 
dozen good silk gowns upon the women along the road, and scarcely 
one which was not clean and in good order. The men for the most 
part figured in jackets, caps, and trousers, eschewing the old well of a 
hat which covers the popular head at the other end of the island, the 
breeches, and the long ill-made tail-coat. The people's faces are sharp 
and neat, not broad, lazy, knowing-looking, like that of many a 
shambling Diogenes who may be seen lounging before his cabin in 
Cork or Kerry. As for the cabins, they have disappeared : and the 
houses of the people may rank decidedly as cottages. The accent, 
too, is quite different ; but this is hard to describe in print. The 
people speak with a Scotch twang, and, as I fancied, much more 
simply and to the point. A man gives you a downright answer, with- 
out any grin or joke, or attempt at flattery. To be sure, these are 
rather early days to begin to judge of national characteristics ; and 
very likely the above distinctions have been drawn after profoundly 
studying a Northern and a Southern waiter at the inn at Armagh. 

At any rate, it is clear that the towns are vastly improved, the cot- 
tages and villages no less so ; the people look active and well-dressed ; 
a sort of weight seems all at once to be taken from the Englishman's 
mind on entering the province, when he finds himself once more look- 
ing upon comfort and activity, and resolution. What is the cause of 
this improvement ?V Protestantism is, more than one Church-of- 
England man said to me ; but, for Protestantism, would it not be as 
well to read Scotchism? — meaning thrift, prudence, perseverance, 
boldness, and common sense : with which qualities any body of men, 
of any Christian denomination, would no doubt prosper. 

The little brisk town of Portadown, with its comfortable unpretend- 

Oc:^JiC^tr^^^-' .AMAJdU^x-cMti ^fAaA^<p*^U-'/^^- jU*-^Zy^>yyJU^ 

M^^^V-*WVV144«^ «*5^^^^^ -<2>utr«ii 2.-4y^ /$^, (Cl4Xt^M>iCC<i^ /U. 



BELFAST. 289 

ing houses, its squares and market-place, its pretty quay, with craft 
along the river, — a steamer building on the dock, close to mills and 
warehouses that look in a full state of prosperity, — was a pleasant 
conclusion to this ten miles' drive, that ended at the newly opened 
railway-station. The distance hence to Belfast is twenty-five miles ; 
Lough Neagh may be seen at one point of the line, and the Guide- 
book says that the station-towns of Lurgan and Lisburn are extremely 
picturesque ; but it was night when I passed by them, and after a 
journey of an hour and a quarter reached Belfast. 

That city has been discovered by another eminent Cockney traveller 
(for though born in America, the dear old Bow-bell blood must run in 
the veins of Mr. N. P. Wilhs), and I have met, in the periodical works 
of the country, with repeated angry allusions to his description of 
Belfast, the pink heels of the chamber-maid who conducted him to bed 
(what business had he to be looking at the young woman's legs at all ?) 
and his wrath at the beggary of the town and the laziness of the in- 
habitants, as marked by a line of dirt running along the walls, and 
showing where they were in the habit of lolling. 

These observations struck me as rather hard when applied to 
Belfast, though possibly pink heels and beggary might be remarked in 
other cities of the kingdom ; but the town of Belfast seemed to me 
really to be as neat, prosperous, and handsome a city as need be seen ; 
and, with respect to the inn, that in which I stayed, " Kearn's," was as 
comfortable and well-ordered an establishment as the most fastidious 
Cockney can desire, and with an advantage which some people perhaps 
do not care for, that the dinners which cost seven shillings at London 
taverns are here served for half-a-crown ; but, I must repeat here, in 
justice to the public, what I stated to Mr. William the waiter, viz. that 
half a pint of port-wine does contain more than two glasses— at least 
it does in happy, happy England. . . Only, to be sure, here the wine 
is good, whereas the port-wine in England is not port, but for the most 
part an abominable drink of which it would be a mercy only to give us 
two glasses : which, however, is clearly wandering from the subject in 
hand. 

They call Belfast the Irish Liverpool. If people are for calling 
names, it would be better to call it the Irish London at once — the 
chief city of the kingdom at any rate. It looks hearty, thriving, and 
prosperous, as if it had money in its pockets and roast-beef for dinner : 
it has no pretensions to fashion, but looks mayhap better in its honest 
broad-cloth than so7ne people in their shabby brocade. The houses 
are as handsome as at Dublin, with this advantage, that the people 

U 



290 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

seem to live in them. They have no attempt at ornament for the most 
part, but are grave, stout, red-brick edifices, laid out at four angles in 
orderly streets and squares. 

The stranger cannot fail to be struck (and haply a httle frightened) 
by the great number of meeting-houses that decorate the town, and 
give evidence of great sermonizing on Sundays. These buildings do 
not affect the Gothic, hke many of the meagre edifices of the 
Estabhshed and the Roman Catholic churches, but have a physi- 
ognomy of their own — a thick-set citizen look. Porticoes have they, 
to be sure, and ornaments Doric, Ionic, and what not? but the 
meeting-house peeps through all these classical friezes and entabla- 
tures ; and though one reads of " Imitations of the Ionic Temple of 
Ilissus, near Athens," the classic temple is made to assume a bluff, 
downright, Presbyterian air, which would astonish the original builder 
doubtless. The churches of the Establishment are handsome 
and stately. The Catholics are building a brick cathedral^ no 
doubt of the Tudor style :— the present chapel, flanked by the 
national-schools, is an exceedingly unprepossessing building of the 
Strawberry Hill or Castle of Otranto Gothic : the keys and mitre 
figuring in the centre — "The cross-keys and nightcap,'' as a hard- 
hearted Presbyterian called them to me, with his blunt humour. 

The three churches are here pretty equally balanced : Presby- 
terians 25,000, Catholics 20,000, Episcopalians 17,000. Each party 
has two or more newspaper organs ; and the wars between them 
are dire and unceasing, as the reader may imagine. For whereas in 
other parts of Ireland where Catholics and Episcopalians prevail, and 
the Presbyterian body is too small, each party has but one opponent 
to belabour : here the Ulster politician, whatever may be his way of 
thinking, has the great advantage of possessing two enemies on whom 
he may exercise his eloquence ; and in this triangular duel all do their 
duty nobly. Then there are subdivisions of hostility. For the Church 
there is a High Church and a Low Church journal ; for the Liberals 
there is a " Repeal " journal and a '■ No-repeal " journal ; for the 
Presbyterians there are yet more varieties of journalistic opinion, on 
which it does not become a stranger to pas:, a judgment. If the Northern 
Whig says that the Banner of Ulster " is a polluted rag, which has 
hoisted the red banner of falsehood" (which elegant words may be 
found in the first-named journal of the 13th October), let us be sure 
the Banner has a compliment for the Northern Whig in return ; if the 
" Repeal " Vindicator and the priests attack the Presbyterian journals 
and the "home missions," the reverend gentlemen of Geneva are 



BOOKS AND PICTURES. 291 

quite as ready with the pen as their brethren of Rome, and not much 
more scrupulous in their language than the laity. When I was in 
Belfast, violent disputes were raging between Presbyterian and Episco- 
palian Conservatives with regard to the Marriage Bill; between 
Presbyterians and Cathohcs on the subject of the "home missions ; " 
between the Liberals and Conservatives, of course. " Thank God," 
for instance, writes a " Repeal "journal, "that the honour and power 
of Irelafid are not involved in the disgraceful Afghan war ! " — a senti- 
ment insinuating Repeal and something more ; disowning, not merely 
this or that Ministry, but the sovereign and her jurisdiction altogether. 
But details of these quarrels, religious or political, can tend to edify 
but few readers out of the country. Even in it, as there are some nine 
shades of politico-religious differences, an observer pretending to 
impartiality must necessarily displease eight parties, and almost 
certainly the whole nine ; and the reader who desires to judge the 
poHtics of Belfast must study for himself. Nine journals, publishing 
four hundred numbers in a year, each number containing about as 
much as an octavo volume : these, and the back numbers of former 
years, sedulously read, will give the student a notion of the subject in 
question. And then, after having read the statements on either side, 
he must ascertain the truth of them, by which time more labour of 
the same kind will have grown upon him, and he will have attained a 
good old age. 

Amongst the poor, the Catholics and Presbyterians are said to go 
in a pretty friendly manner to the national-schools ; but among the 
Presbyterians themselves it appears there are great differences and 
quarrels, by which a fine institution, the Belfast Academy, seems to 
have suffered considerably. It is almost the only building in this 
large and substantial place that bears, to the stranger's eye, an un- 
prosperous air. A vast building, standing fairly in the midst of a 
handsome green and place, and with snug, comfortable red-brick 
streets stretching away at neat right angles all around, the Presby- 
terian College looks handsome enough at a short distance, but on a 
nearer view is found in a woful state of dilapidation. It does not 
possess the supreme dirt and filth of Maynooth — that can but belong 
to one place, even in Ireland ; but the building is in a dismal state of 
unrepair, steps and windows broken, doors and stairs battered. Of 
scholars I saw but a few, and these were in the drawing academy. 
The fine arts do not appear as yet to flourish in Belfast. The models 
from which the lads were copying were not good : one was copying 
a bad copy of a drawing by Prout ; one was colouring a print. The 

u 2 



292 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

ragged children in a German national-school have better models 
before them, and are made acquainted with truer principles of art and 
beauty. 

Hard by is the Belfast Museum, where an exhibition of pictures 
was in preparation, under the patronage of the Belfast Art Union. 
Artists in all parts of the kingdom had been invited to send their 
works, of which the Union pays the carriage ; and the porters and 
secretary were busy unpacking cases, in which I recognized some of 
the works which had before figured on the w^alls of the London Exhi- 
bition rooms. 

The book-shops which I saw in this thriving town said much for 
the religious disposition of the Belfast public : there were numerous 
portraits of reverend gentlemen, and their works of every variety : — 
'■ The Sinner's Friend," '' The Watchman on the Tower," " The Peep 
of Day," " Sermons delivered at Bethesda Chapel," by so-and-so ; with 
hundreds of the neat little gilt books with bad prints, scriptural titles, 
and gilt edges, that come from one or two serious publishing houses 
in London, and in considerable numbers from the neighbouring Scotch 
shores. As for the theatre, with such a public the drama can be ex- 
pected to find but little favour ; and the gentleman who accompanied 
me in my walk, and to whom I am indebted for many kindnesses 
during my stay, said not only that he had never been in the playhouse, 
but that he never heard of any one going thither. I found out the place 
where the poor neglected Dramatic Muse of Ulster hid herself; and 
was of a party of six in the boxes, the benches of the pit being dotted 
over with about a score more. Well, it was a comfort to see 
that the gallery was quite full, and exceedingly happy and noisy : 
they stamped, and stormed, and shouted, and clapped in a way 
that was pleasant to hear. One young god, between the acts, favoured 
the public with a song — extremely ill sung certainly, but the intention 
was everything ; and his brethren above stamped in chorus with 
roars of delight. 

As for the piece performed, it was a good old melodrama of the 
British sort, inculcating a thorough detestation of vice and a 
warm sympathy with suffering virtue. The serious are surely too 
hard upon poor play-goers. We never for a moment allow rascality 
to triumph beyond a certain part of the third act : we sympathize 
with the woes of young lovers — her in ringlets and a Pohsh cap, him 
in tights and a Vandyke collar ; we abhor avarice or tyranny in the 
person of " the first old man " with the white wig and red stockings, 
or of the villain with the roaring voice and black whiskers ; we 



FLAX-SPINNING MILLS. 293 

applaud the honest wag (he is a good fellow in spite of his cowardice) 
in his hearty jests at the tyrant before mentioned ; and feel a kindly 
sympathy with all mankind as the curtain falls over all the characters 
in a group, of which successful love is the happy centre. Reverend 
gentlemen in meeting-house and church, who shout against the im- 
moralities of this poor stage, and threaten all play-goers with the fate 
which is awarded to unsuccessful plays, should try and bear less hardly 
upon us. 

An artist — who, in spite of the Art Union, can scarcely, I should 
think, flourish in a place that seems devoted to preaching, politics, 
and trade — has somehow found his way to this humble little theatre, 
and decorated it with some exceedingly pretty scenery— almost the 
only indication of a taste for the fine arts which I have found as yet 
in the country. 

A fine night-exhibition in the town is that of the huge spinning-mills 
which surround it, and of which the thousand windows are lighted 
up at nightfall, and may be seen from almost all quarters of the city. 

A gentleman to whom I had brought an introduction good- 
naturedly left his work to walk with me to one of these mills, and 
stated by whom he had been introduced to me to the mill-proprietor, 
Mr. Mulholland. " That recommendation," said Mr. Mulholland 
gallantly, " is welcome anywhere." It was from my kind friend Mr. 
Lever. What a privilege some men have, who can sit quietly in their 
studies and make friends all the world over ! 

On the next page is the figure of a girl sketched in the place : there 
are nearly five hundred girls employed in it. They work in huge long 
chambers, lighted by numbers of windows, hot with steam, buzzing and 
humming with hundreds of thousands of whirhng wheels, that all take 
their motion from a steam-engine which lives apart in a hot cast-iron 
temple of its own, from which it communicates with the innumerable 
machines that the five hundred girls preside over. They have 
seemingly but to take away the work when done — the enormous 
monster in the cast-iron room does it all. He cards the flax, and 
combs it, and spins it, and beats it, and twists it : the five hundred 
girls stand by to feed him, or take the material from him, when he has 
had his will of it. There is something frightful in the vastness as in 
the minuteness of this power. Every thread writhes and twirls as the 
steam-fate orders it, — every thread, of which it would take a hundred 
to make the thickness of a hair. 

I have seldom, I think, seen more good looks than amongst the 
young women employed in this place. They work for twelve hours 



294 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 



daily, in rooms of which the heat is intolerable to a stranger ; but in 
spite of it they looked gay, stout, and healthy ; nor were their forms 
much concealed by the very simple clothes they wear while in the mill. 




The stranger will be struck by the good looks not only of these 
spinsters, but of almost all the young women in the streets I never 
saw a town where so many women are to be met — so many and so 
pretty — with and without bonnets, with good figures, in neat homely 
shawls and dresses. The grisettes of Belfast are among th^ hand- 
somest ornaments of it ; and as good, no doubt, and irreproachable in 
morals as their sisters in the rest of Ireland. 

Many of the merchants' counting-houses are crowded in little old- 
fashioned " entries," of courts, such as one sees about the Bank in 
London. In and about these, and in the principal streets in the 
daytime, is a great activity, and homely unpretending bustle. The 
men have a business look, too ; and one sees very few flaunting 
dandies, as in Dublin. The shopkeepers do not brag upon their 
signboards, or keep "emporiums," as elsewhere, — their places of 
business being for the most part homely ; though one may see some 
splendid shops, which are not to be surpassed by London. The 
docks and quays are busy with their craft and shipping, upon the 



THE PORT. 



295 



beautiful borders of the Lough ; — the large red warehouses stretching 
along the shores, with ships loading, or unloading, or building, 
hammers clanging, pitch pots flaming and boiling, seamen cheering 
in the ships, or lolling lazily on the shore. The life and movement 
of a port here give the stranger plenty to admire and observe. And 
nature has likewise done everything for the place — surrounding it 
with picturesque hills and water ;— for which latter I must confess I 
was not very sorry to leave the town behind me, and its mills, and its 
meeting-houses, and its commerce, and its theologians, and its 
politicians 




296 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 



BELFAST TO THE CAUSEWAY. 



HE Lough of Belfast has a 
reputation for beauty almost 
as great as that of the Bay 
of Dublin ; but though, on 
the day I left Belfast for 
Larne, the morning was fine, 
and the sky clear and blue 
above, an envious mist lay 
on the water, which hid all 
its beauties from the dozen 
of passengers on the Larne 
coach. All we could see 
were ghostly-looking sil- 
houettes of ships gliding here 
and there through the clouds ; 
and I am sure the coachman's 
remark was quite correct, 
that it was a pity the day 
was so misty. I found myself, before I was aware, entrapped into a 
theological controversy with two grave gentlemen outside the coach — 
another fog, which did not subside much before we reached Carrick- 
fergus. The road from the Ulster capital to that little town seemed 
meanwhile to be extremely lively : cars and omnibuses passed thickly 
peopled. For some miles along the road is a string of handsome 
country-houses, belonging to the rich citizens of the town ; and we 
passed by neat-looking churches and chapels, factories and rows of 
cottages clustered round them, like villages of old .at the foot of feudal 
castles. Furthermore it was hard to see, for the mist which lay on 
the water had enveloped the mountains too, and we only had a 
glimpse or two of smiling comfortable fields and gardens. 

Carrickfergus rejoices in a real romantic-looking castle, jutting 
bravely into the sea, and famous as a background for a picture. It is 




COACH-BOX SKETCHES, 297 

of use for little else now, luckily; nor has it been put to any real 
warlike purposes since the day when honest Thurot stormed, took, 
and evacuated it. Let any romancer who is in want of a hero peruse 
the second volume, or it may be the third, of the " Annual Register," 
where the adventures of that gallant fellow are related. He was a 
gentleman, a genius, and, to crown all, a smuggler. He lived for 
some time in Ireland, and in England, in disguise ; he had love- 
passages and romantic adventures ; he landed a body of his country- 
men on these shores, and died in the third volume, after a battle 
gallantly fought on both sides, but in which victory rested with the 
British arms. What can a novelist want more? William III. also 
landed here ; and as for the rest, " M'Skimin, the accurate and 
laborious historian of the town, informs us that the founding of the 
castle is lost in the depths of antiquity." It is pleasant to give a 
little historic glance at a place as one passes through. The above 
facts may be relied on as coming from Messrs. Curry's excellent new 
Guide-book ; with the exception of the history of Mons. Thurot. 
which is "private information,"' drawn years ago from the scarce 
work previously mentioned. By the way, another excellent com- 
panion to the traveller in Ireland is the collection of the " Irish Penny 
Magazine," which may be purchased for a guinea, and contains a mass 
of information regarding the customs and places of the country. 
Willis's work is amusing, as everything is, written by that lively 
author, and the engravings accompanying it as unfaithful as any ever 
made. 

Meanwhile, asking pardon for this double digression, which has 
been made while the guard-coachman is delivering his mail-bags — 
while the landlady stands looking on in the sun, her hands folded a 
little below the waist — while a company of tall burly troops from the 
castle has passed by, " commanded " by a very mean, mealy-faced, 
uneasy-looking little subaltern — while the poor epileptic idiot of the 
town, wallowing and grinning in the road, and snorting out supplica- 
tions for a halfpenny, has tottered away in possession of the coin : — 
meanwhile, fresh horses are brought out, and the small boy who acts 
behind the coach makes an unequal and disagreeable tootooing on a 
horn kept to warn sleepy carmen and celebrate triumphal entries 
into and exits from cities. As the mist clears up, the country shows 
round about wild but friendly : at one place we passed a village 
where a crowd of well-dressed people were collected at an auction of 
farm-furniture, and many more figures might be seen coming over the 
fields and issuing from the mist. The owner of the carts and machines 



298 



HIE IRISH SKETCH BOOK, 



is going to emigrate to America. Presently we come to the demesne 
of Red Hall, " through which is a pretty drive of upwards of a mile 
in length : it contains a rocky glen, the bed of a mountain stream — 
which is perfectly dry, except in winter — and the woods about it are 
picturesque, and it is occasionally the resort of summer-parties of 
pleasure." Nothing can be more just than the first part of the 
description, and there is very little doubt that the latter paragraph is 
equally faithful ;— with which we come to Larne, a " most thriving 
town," the same authority says, but a most dirty and narrow-streeted 
and ill-built one. Some of the houses reminded one of the south, as 
thus : — 




A benevolent fellow-passenger said that the window was " a con- 
vanience." And here, after a drive of nineteen miles upon a comfort- 
able coach, we were transferred with the mail-bags to a comfortable 
car that makes the journey to Ballycastle. There is no harm in 
saying that there was a very pretty smiling buxom young lass for a 
travelling companion ; and somehow, to a lonely person, the land- 
scape always looks prettier in such society. The "Antrim coast- 
road,'^ which we now, after a few miles, begin to follow, besides being 
one of the most noble and gallant works of art that is to be seen in 
any country,- is likewise a route highly picturesque and romantic ; the 
sea spreadmg wide before the spectator's eyes upon one side of the 
route, the tali cliffs of limestone rising abruptly above him on the 
other. There are ir the map of Curry's Guide-book points indicating 
castlet and abbey ruins in the vicinity of Glenarm ; and the little place 
looked so comfortable, as we abruptly came upon it, round a rock, that 
I was glad to have an excuse for staying, and felt an extreme curiosity 
with regard tc the abbey and the castle. 

The abbey only exists in the unromantic shape of a wall; the 
castle, however, far from being a ruin, is an antique in the most 



ANTRIM COAST-ROAD. 299 

complete order — an old castle repaired so as to look like new, and 
increased by modern wings, towers, gables, and terraces, so extremely 
old that the whole forms a grand and imposing-looking baronial 
edifice, towering above the little town which it seems to protect, and 
with which it is connected by a bridge and a severe-looking armed 
tower and gate. In the town is a town-house, with a campanile in the 
Italian taste, and a school or chapel opposite in the early Enghsh; so 
that the inhabitants can enjoy a considerable architectural variety. A 
grave-looking church, with a beautiful steeple, stands amid some trees 
hard by a second handsome bridge and the little quay ; and here, too, 
was perched a poor little wandering theatre (gallery \d., pit 2<^.), and 
proposing that night to play " Bombastes Furioso, and the Comic 
Bally of Glenarm in an Uproar." I heard the thumpmg of the drum 
in the evening ; but, as at Roundwood, nobody patronized the poor 
players. At nine o'clock there was not a single taper lighted under 
their awning, and my heart (perhaps it is too susceptible) bled for 
Fusbos. 

The severe gate of the castle was opened by a kind, good-natured 
old porteress, instead of a rough gallowglass with a battle-axe and 
yellow shirt (more fitting guardian of so stern a postern), and the old 
dame insisted upon my making an application to see the grounds of 
the castle, which request was very kindly gjranted, and aftorded a 
delightful half-hour's walk. The grounds are beautiful, and excellently 
kept ; the trees in their autumn livery of red, yellow, and brown, 
except some stout ones that keep to their green summer clothes^ and 
the laurels and their like, who wear pretty much the same dress ali 
the year round. The birds were singing with the most astonishmg 
vehemence in the dark glistening shrubberies ; but the only sound in 
the walks was that of the rakes pulling together the falling leaves. 
There was of these walks one especially, flanked towards the river by 
a turreted wall covered with ivy, and having on the one side a row of 
lime-trees that had turned quite yellow, while opposite them was a 
green slope, and a quaint terrace- stair, and a long range of fantastic 
gables, towers, and chimneys; — there was, I say, one of these walks 
which Mr. Cattermole would hit off with a few strokes of his gallant 
pencil, and which I could fancy to be frequented by some of those 
long-trained, tender, gentle-looking young beauties whom Mr. Stone 
loves to design. Here they come, talking of love in a tone that is 
between a sigh and a whisper, and gliding in rustling shot silks over 
the fallen leaves. 

There seemed to be a good deal of stir in the little port, where. 



300 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

says the Guide-book, a couple of hundred vessels take in cargoes 
annually of the produce of the district. Stone and lime are the chief 
articles exported, of which the cliffs for miles give an unfaihng supply; 
and, as one travels the mountains at night, the kilns may be seen 
lighted up in the lonely places, and flaring red in the darkness. 

If the road from Larne to Glenarm is beautiful, the coast route 
from the latter place to Cushendall is still more so; and, except 
peerless Westport, I have seen nothing in Ireland so picturesque as 
this noble line of coast scenery. The new road, luckily, is not yet 
completed, and the lover of natural beauties had better hasten to the 
spot in time, ere, by flattening and improving the road, and leading it 
along the sea-shore, half the magnificent prospects are shut out, now 
visible from along the mountainous old road ; which, according to the 
good old fashion, gallantly takes all the hills in its course, disdaining 
to turn them. At three miles' distance, near the village of Cairlough, 
Glenarm looks more beautiful than when you are close upon it ; and, 
as the car travels on to the stupendous Garron Head, the traveller, 
looking back, has a view of the whole line of coast southv.-ard as far 
as Isle Magee, with its bays and white villages, and tall precipitous 
cHffs, green, white, and grey. Eyes left, you may look with wonder at 
the mountains rising above, or presently at the pretty park and 
grounds of l!)rumnasole. Here, near the woods of Nappan, which are 
dressed in ten thousand colours— ash-leaves turned yellow, nut-trees 
red, birch-leaves brown, lime-leaves speckled over with black spots 
(marks of a disease which they will never get over) — stands a school- 
house that looks like a French chateau, having probably been a villa 
in former days, and discharges as we pass a cluster of fair-haired 
children, that begin running madly down the hill, their fair hair 
streaming behind them. Down the hill goes the car, madly too, and 
you wonder and bless your stars that the horse does not fall, or crush 
the children that are running before, or you that are sitting behind. 
Every now and then, at a trip of the horse, a disguised lady's-maid, 
with a canary-bird in her lap and a vast anxiety about her best bonnet 
in the band-box, begins to scream : at which the car-boy grins, and 
rattles down the hill only the quicker. The road, which almost 
always skirts the hill-side, has been torn sheer through the rock here 
and there : an immense work of levelling, shovelling, picking, blasting, 
filling, is going on along the whole line. As I was looking up a vast 
cliff, decorated with patches of green here and there at its summit, 
and at its base, where the sea had beaten until now, with long, thin, 
waving grass, that I told a grocer, my neighbuor, was like mermaid's 



RED BAY. 301 

hair (though he did not in the least coincide in the simile)— as I was 
looking up the hill, admiring two goats that were browsing on a little 
patch of green, and two sheep perched yet higher (I had never seen 
such agility in mutton) — as, I say once more, I was looking at these 
phenomena, the grocer nudges me and says, ^^ Look oil to this side— 
thafs Scotland yonP If ever this book reaches a second edition, a 
sonnet shall be inserted in this place, describing the author's feelings 
on HIS FIRST VIEW OF SCOTLAND. Meanwhile, the Scotch mountain? 
remain undisturbed, looking blue and solemn, far away in the placid 
sea. 

Rounding Garron Head, we come upon the inlet which is called 
Red Bay, the shores and sides of which are of red clay, that has taken 
the place of limestone, and towards which, between two noble ranges 
of mountains, stretches a long green plain, forming, together with the 
hills that protect it and the sea that washes it, one of the most 
beautiful landscapes of this most beautiful country. A fair writer, 
whom the Guide-book quotes, breaks out into strains of admiration in 
speaking of this district ; calls it " Switzerland in miniature," celebrates 
its mountains of Glenariff and Lurgethan, and lauds, in terms of equal 
admiration, the rivers, waterfalls, and other natural beauties that lie 
within the glen. 

The writer's enthusiasm regarding this tract of country is quite 
warranted, nor can any praise in admiration of it be too high; but 
alas ! in calling a place " Switzerland in miniature," do we describe it 1 
In joining together cataracts, valleys, rushing streams, and blue 
mountains, with all the emphasis and picturesqueness of which type is 
capable, we cannot get near to a copy of Nature's sublime coun- 
tenance ; and the writer can't hope to describe such grand sights so as 
to make them visible to the fireside reader, but can only, to the best 
of his taste and experience, warn the future traveller where he may 
look out for objects to admire. I think this sentiment has been repeated 
a score of times in this journal; but it comes upon one at every new 
display of beauty and magnificence, such as here the Almighty in his 
bounty has set before us ; and every such scene seems to warn one, 
that it is not made to talk about too much, but to think of and love, 
and be grateful for. 

Rounding this beautiful bay and valley, we passed by some caves 
that penetrate deep into the red rock, and are inhabited — one by a 
blacksmith, whose forge was blazing in the dark ; one by cattle ; and 
one by an old woman that has sold whisky here for time out of mind. 
The road then passes under an -arch cut in the rock by the same 



302 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

spirited individual who has cleared away many of the difficulties in 
the route to Glenarm, and beside a conical hill, where for some time 
previous have been visible the ruins of the " ancient ould castle " of 
Red Bay. At a distance, it looks very grand upon its height; but 
on coming close it has dwindled down to a mere wall, and not a high 
one. Hence quickly we reached Cushendall, where the grocer's 
family are on the look-out for him : the driver begins to blow his 
little bugle, and the disguised lady's-maid begins to smooth her bonnet 
and hair. 

At this place a good dinner of fresh whiting, broiled bacon, and 
small beer was served up to me for the sum of eightpence, while the 
lady's-maid in question took her tea. " This town is full of Papists," 
said her ladyship, with an extremely genteel air ; and, either in con- 
sequence of this, or because she ate up one of the fish, which she had 
clearly no right to, a disagreement arose between us, and we did not 
exchange another word for the rest of the journey. The road led us 
for fourteen miles by wild mountains, and across a fine aqueduct to 
Ballycastle ; but it was dark as we left Cushendall, and it was difficult 
to see more in the grey evening but that the country was savage and 
lonely, except where the kilns were lighted up here and there in the 
hills, and a shining river might be seen winding in the dark ravines. 
Not far from Ballycastle lies a little old ruin, called the Abbey of 
Bonamargy : by it the Margy river runs into the sea, upon which you 
come suddenly ; and on the shore are some tall buildings and factories, 
that looked as well in the moonlight as if they had not been in ruins : 
and hence a fine avenue of limes leads to Ballycastle. They must 
have been planted at the time recorded in the Guide-book, when a 
mine was discovered near the town, and the works and warehouses 
on the quay erected. At present, the place has little trade, and half- 
a-dozen carts with apples, potatoes, dried fish, and turf, seem to 
contain the commerce of the market. 

The picturesque sort of vehicle designed on the next page is said 
to be going much out of fashion in the country, the solid wheels giving 
place to those common to the rest of Europe. A fine and edifying 
conversation took place between the designer and the owner of the 
vehicle. " Stand still for a minute, you and the car, and I will give 
you twopence ! " "What do you want to do with it ?" says the latter. 
"To draw it." "To draw it !" says he, with a wild look of surprise. 
" And is it youHl draw it ? " "I mean I want to take a picture of it : 
you know what a picture is ! " " No, I don't." " Here's one," says 
I, showing him a book. " Oh, faith, sir," says the carman, drawing 



BALLYCASTLE. 303 

back rather alarmed, " I'm no scholar ! " And he concluded by 
saying, " Will y 01c buy the turf, or will you not ? " By which straight- 
forward question he showed himself to be a real practical man of 
sense ; and, as he got an unsatisfactory reply to this query, he 
forthwith gave a lash to his pony and declined to wait a minute 



^-r-#S -- 



longer. As for the twopence, he certainly accepted that handsome 
sum, and put it into his pocket, but with an air of extreme wonder at 
the transaction, and of contempt for the giver ; which very likely was 
perfectly justifiable. I have seen men despised in genteel companies 
with not half so good a cause. 

In respect to the fine arts, I am bound to say that the people in 
the South and West showed much more curiosity and interest with 
regard to a sketch and its progress than has been shown by the 
badattds of the North ; the former looking on by dozens and exclaim- 
ing, "That's Frank Mahony's house !" or '^ Look at Biddy Mullins 
and the child ! " or " He's taking off the chimney now ! " as the case 
may be ; whereas, sketching in the North, I have collected no such 
spectators, the people not taking the slightest notice of the trans- 
action. 

The httle town of Ballycastle does not contain much to occupy 
the traveller : behind the church stands a ruined old mansion with 
round turrets, that must have been a stately tower in former days. 
The town is more modern, but almost as dismal as the tower. A 
little street behind it slides off into a potato- field— the peaceful barrier 
of the place ; and hence I could see the tall rock of Bengore, with 
the sea beyond it, and a pleasing landscape stretching towards it. 

Dr. Hamilton's elegant and learned book has an awful picture of 



304 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

yonder head of Bengore ; and hard by it the Guide-book sa\-s is a 
coal-mine, where Mr. Barrow found a globular stone hammer, which, 
he infers, was used in the coal-mine before weapons of iron were 
invented. The former -ivriter insinuates that the mine must have 
been worked more than a thousand years ago, " before the turbulent 
chaos of events that succeeded the eighth centur}-." ShaU I go and 
see a coal-mine that may have been worked a thousand years since ? 
WTiy go see it ? says idleness. To be able to say that I have seen it 
Sheridan's advice to his son here came into my mind ; * and I shall 
reserve a description of the mine, and an antiquarian dissertation 
regarding it, for publication elsewhere. 

BaUycasde must not be left ^^ithout recording the fact that one of 
the snuggest inns in the country is kept by the postmaster there ; who 
has also a stable fuU of good horses for travellers who take his little 
inn on the way to the Giant's Causeway. 

The road to the Causeway is bleak, wild, and hilly. The cabins 
along the road are scarcely better than those of Kerry, the inmates 
as ragged, and more fierce and dark-looking. I never was so pestered 
by juvenile beggars as in the dismal \illage of Ballintoy. A crowd 
of them rushed after the car, calling for money in a fierce manner, as 
if it was their right : dogs as fierce as the children came yelling after 
the vehicle ; and the faces which scowled out of the black cabins 
were not a whit more good-humoured- We passed by one or two 
more dumps of cabins, with their turf and corn-stacks King together 
at the foot of the hills; placed there for the convenience of the 
children, doubtless, who can thus accompany the car either way, and 
shriek out their '• Bonny gantleman, gi'e us a ha'p'ny." A couple of 
churches, one with a pair of its pinnacles blown off, stood in the 
dismal open country-, and a gentleman's house here and there : there 
were no trees about them, but a brown grass round about — hills rising 
and falling in firont, and the sea beyond. The occasional \-iew of the 
coast was noble ; wild Bengore towering eastwards as we went along ; 
Ragher>- Island before us, in the steep rocks and caves of which 
Bruce took shelter when driven from yonder Scottish coast, that one 
sees stretching blue in the north-east. 

I think this wild gloomy tract through which one passes is a good 
prelude for what is to be the great sight of the day, and got my mind 
to a proper state of awe by the time we were near the joume\-^s end. 
Turning away shorewards by the fine house of Sir Frands JNIacnaghten, 

* "I want to go into a coal-mine," says Tom Sheridan, *'in order to say 
I have been there." " Well, then, say so.*' replied the admirable father. 



A LONE INN. 305 

I went towards a lone handsome inn, that stands close to the Cause- 
way. The landlord at Ballycastle had lent me Hamilton's book to 
read on the road ; but I had not time then to read more than half a 
dozen pages of it. They described how the author, a clergyman dis- 
tinguished as a man of science, had been thrust out of a friend's house 
by the frightened servants one wild night, and butchered by some 
Whiteboys who were waiting outside and called for his blood. I had 
been told at Belfast that there was a corpse in the inn : was it there 
now ? It had driven off, the car-boy said, " in a handsome hearse and 
four to Dublin the whole way." It was gone, but I thought the house 
looked as if the ghost was there. See, yonder are the black rocks 
stretching to Portrush : how leaden and grey the sea looks ! how grey 
and leaden the sky ! You hear the waters roaring evermore, as they 
have done since the beginning of the world. The car drives up with a 
dismal grinding noise of the wheels to the big lone house : there's no 
smoke in the chimneys ; the doors are locked. Three savage-looking 
men rush after the car : are they the men who took out Mr. Hamilton 
— took him out and butchered him in the moonlight ? Is everybody, 
I wonder, dead in that big house ? Will they let us in before those 
men are up ? Out comes a pretty smiling girl, with a curtsey, just as 
the savages are at the car, and you are ushered into a very comfortable 
room ; and the men turn out to be guides. Well, thank heaven it's no 
worse ! I had fifteen pounds still left ; and, when desperate, have no 
doubt should fight like a lion. 



3o6 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY— COLERAINE—PORTRUSH. 



HE traveller no sooner 
issues from the inn by a 
back door, which he is 
informed will lead him 
straight to the Causeway, 
than the guides pounce 
upon him, with a dozen 
rough boatmen who are 
likewise lying in wait ; 
and a crew of shrill beg- 
gar-boys, with boxes of 
spars, ready tc tear him 
and each other to pieces 
seemingly, yell and bawl 
incessantly round him. 
"I'm the guide Miss 
Henry recommends," 
shouts one. " I'm Mr. 
Macdonald's guide," pushes in another. " This way," roars a third, 
and drags his prey down a precipice ; the rest of them clambering 
and quarrelling after. I had no friends : I was perfectly helpless. I 
wanted to walk down to the shore by myself, but they would not let me, 
and I had nothing for it but to yield myself into the hands of the guide 
who had seized me, who hurried me down the steep to a little wild 
bay, flanked on each side by rugged cliffs and rocks, against which the 
waters came tumbling, frothmg, and roaring furiously. Upon some of 
these black rocks two or three boats were lying : four men seized a 
boat, pushed it shouting into the water, and ravished me into it. We 
had slid between two rocks, where the channel came gurgling in : we 
were up one swelling wave that came in a huge advancing body ten 
feet above us, and were plunging madly down another, (the descent 
causes a sensation in the lower regions of the stomach which it is not 




GOING TO THE CAUSEWAY. 



307 



at all necessary here to describe,) before I had leisure to ask myself 
why the deuce I was in that boat, with four rowers hurrooing and 
bounding madly from one huge hquid mountain to another— four rowers 
whom I was bound to pay. I say, the query came qualmishly across me 
why the devil I was there, and why not walking calmly on the shore. 
The guide began pouring his professional jargon into my ears. 




" Every one of them bays," says he, " has a name (take my place, and 
the spray won't come over you) : that is Port Noffer, and the next. 
Port na Gange ; them rocks is the Stookawns (for every rock has its 
name as well as every bay) ; and yonder — give way, my boys, — hurray, 
we're over it now : has it wet you much, sir ? — that's the little cave : it 

X 2 



3oS THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

goes five hundred feet under ground, and the boats goes into it easy of 
a calm day." 

"Is it a fine day or a rough one now?" said I ; the internal disturb- 
ance going on with more severity than ever. 

" It's betwixt and between ; or, I may say, neither one nor the 
other. Sit up, sir. Look at the entrance of the cave. Don't be 
afraid, sir : never has an accident happened in any one of these boats, 
and the most delicate ladies has rode in them on rougher days 
than this. Now, boys, pull to the big cave. That, sir, is six hundred 
and sixty yards in length, though some say it goes for miles inland, 
where the people sleeping in their houses hear the waters roaring 
under them." 

The water was tossing and tumbling into the mouth of the little 
cave. I looked, — for the guide would not let me alone till I did, — 
and saw what might be expected : a black hole of some forty feet 
high, into which it was no more possible to see than into a mill- 
stone. " For heaven's sake, sir," says I, " if you've no particular wish 
to see the mouth of the big cave, put about and let us see the Cause- 
way and get ashore." This was done, the guide meanwhile telling 
some story of a ship of the Spanish Armada having fired her guns at 
two peaks of rock, then visible, which the crew mistook for chimney- 
pots — what benighted fools these Spanish Armadilloes must have 
been : it is easier to see a rock than a chimney-pot ; it is easy to know 
that chimney-pots do not grow on rocks. — " But where, if you please, 
is the Causeway ? " 

" That's the Causeway before you," says the guide. 

"Which?" 

" That pier which you see jutting out into the bay, right a-head." 

" Mon Dieii ! and have I travelled a hundred and fifty miles to see 
that?'' 

I declare, upon my conscience, the barge moored at Hungerford 
market is a more majestic object, and seems to occupy as much space. 
As for teUing a man that the Causeway is merely a part of the sight ; 
that he is there for the purpose of examining the surrounding scenery ; 
that if he looks to the westward he will see Portrush and Donegal 
Head before him ; that the cliffs immediately in his front are green in 
some places, black in others, interspersed with blotches of brown and 
streaks of verdure ; — what is all this to a lonely individual lying sick in 
a boat, between two immense waves that only give him momentary 
glimpses of the land in question, to show that it is frightfully near, and 
yet you are an hour from it? They won't let you go away — that cursed 



SEEING THE CAUSEWAY. 309 

guide will tell out his stock of legends and stories. The boatmen in- 
sist upon your looking at boxes of " specimens," which you must buy 
of them ; they laugh as you grow paler and paler ; they offer you more 
and more " specimens ; " even the dirty lad who pulls number three, 
and is not allowed by his comrades to speak, puts in his oar, and 
hands you over a piece of Irish diamond (it looks like half-sucked 
ahcompayne), and scorns you. " Hurray, lads, now for it, give way !" 
how the oars do hurtle in the rowlocks, as the boat goes up an aqueous 
mountain, and then down into one of those cursed maritime valleys 
where there is no rest as on shore ! 

At last, after they had pulled me enough about, and sold me all the 
boxes of specimens, I was permitted to land at the spot whence we set 
out, and whence, though we had been rowing for an hour, w^e had 
never been above five hundred yards distant. Let all Cockneys take 
v/arning from this ; let the solitary one caught issuing from the back 
door of the hotel, shout at once to the boatmen to be gone — that he 
will have none of them. Let him, at any rate, go first down to the 
water to determine whether it be smooth enough to allow him to take 
any decent pleasure by riding on its surface. For after all, it must be 
remembered that it is pleasure we come for — that we are not obliged to 
take those boats. — Well, well ! I paid ten shillings for mine, and ten 
minutes before would cheerfully have paid five pounds to be allowed 
to quit it ; it was no hard bargain after all. As for the boxes of spar 
and specimens, I at once, being on terra firma, broke my promise, and 

said I would see them all first. It is wrong to swear, I know ; but 

sometimes it relieves one so much ! 

The first act on shore was to make a sacrifice to Sanctissima 
Tellus ; offering up to her a neat and becomijig Taglioni coat, bought 
for a guinea in Covent Garden only three months back. I sprawled 
on my back on the smoothest of rocks that is, and tore the elbows to 
pieces : the guide picked me up ; the boatmen did not stir, for they 
had had their will of me ; the guide alone picked me up, I say, and 
bade me follow him. We went across a boggy ground in one of the 
little bays, round which rise the green walls of the cliff, terminated 
on either side by a black crag, and the line of the shore washed by 
the poluphloisboiotic, nay, the poluphloisboiotatotic sea. Two beggars 
stepped over the bog after us howling for money, and each holding up 
a cursed box of specimens. No oaths, threats, entreaties, would drive 
these vermin away ; for some time the whole scene had been spoilt by 
the incessant and abominable jargon of them, the boatmen, and the 
guides. I was oblijed to give them money to be left in quiet, and if, 



310 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

as no doubt will be the case, the Giant's Causeway shall be a still 
greater resort of travellers than ever, the county must put policemen 
on the rocks to keep the beggars away, or fling them in the water 
when they appear. 

And now, by force of money, having got rid of the sea and land 
beggars, you are at liberty to examine at your leisure the wonders of the 
place. There is not the least need for a guide to attend the stranger, 
unless the latter have a mind to listen to a parcel of legends, which 
may be well from the mouth of a wild simple peasant who beheves in 
his tales, but are odious from a dullard who narrates them at the rate 
of sixpence a lie. Fee him and the other beggars, and at last you are 
left tranquil to look at the strange scene with your own eyes, and enjoy 
your own thoughts at leisure. 

That is, if the thoughts awakened by such a scene may be called 
enjoyment ; but for me, I confess, they are too near akin to fear to be 
pleasant ; and I dont know that I would desire to change that sensa- 
tion of awe and terror which the hour's walk occasioned, for a greater 
famiharity with this wild, sad, lonely place. The solitude is awful. I 
can't understand how those chattering guides dare to lift up their voices 
here, and cry for money. 

It looks like the beginning of the world, somehow : the sea looks 
older than in other places, the hills and rocks strange, and formed dif- 
ferently from other rocks and hills — as those vast dubious monsters 
were formed who possessed the earth before man. The hill-tops are 
shattered into a thousand cragged fantastical shapes ; the water comes 
swelling into scores of little strange creeks, or goes off with a leap, 
roaring into those mysterious caves yonder, which penetrate who 
knows how far into our common world ? The savage rock-sides are 
painted of a hundred colours. Does the sun ever shine here ? When 
the world was moulded and fashioned out of formless chaos, this must 
have been the bit over — a remnant of chaos ! Think of that ! — it is a 
tailor's simile. Well, I am a Cockney : I wish I were in Pall Mall ! 
Yonder is a kelp-burner : a lurid smoke from his burning kelp rises up 
to the leaden sky, and he looks as naked and fierce as Cain. Bubbling 
up out of the rocks at the very brim of the sea rises a little crystal 
spring : how comes it there ? and there is an old grey hag beside, who 
has been there for hundreds and hundreds of years, and there sits and 
sells whisky at the extremity of creation ! How do you dare to sell 
whisky there, old woman? Did you serve old Saturn with a glass 
when he lay along the Causeway here 1 In reply, she says, she has no 
chansre for a shillini? : she never has ; but her whisky is good. 



THE GIANTS CAUSEWAY. 311 

This is not a description of the Giant's Causeway (as some clever critic 
will remark), but of a Londoner there, who is by no means so interest- 
ing an object as the natural curiosity in question. That single hint is 
sufficient ; I have not a word more to say. " If," says he, " you cannot 
describe the scene lying before us— if you cannot state from your 
personal observation that the number of basaltic pillars composing the 
Causeway has been computed at about forty thousand, which vary in 
diameter, their surface presenting the appearance of a tesselated pave- 
ment of polygonal stones — that each pillar is formed of several distinct 
joints, the convex end of the one being accurately fitted in the concave 
of the next, and the length of the joints varying from five feet to four 
inches — that although the pillars are polygonal, there is but one of three 
sides in the whole forty thousand (think of that !), but three of nine sides, 
and that it may be safely computed that ninety-nine out of one hundred 
pillars have either five, six, or seven sides ; — if you cannot state some- 
thing useful, you had much better, sir, retire and get your dinner." 

Never was summons more gladly obeyed. The dinner must be 
ready by this time ; so,, remain you, and look on at the awful scene, and 
copy it down in words if you can. If at the end of the trial you are 
dissatisfied with your skill as a painter, and find that the biggest of your 
words cannot render the hues and vastness of that tremendous swelling 
sea— of those lean solitary crags standing rigid along the shore, where 
they have been watching the ocean ever since it was made — of those 
grey towers of Dunluce standing upon a leaden rock, and looking as 
if some old, old princess, of old, old fairy times, were dragon-guarded 
within— of yon flat stretches of sand where the Scotch and Irish mer- 
maids hold conference — come away too, and prate no more about the 
scene ! There is that in nature, dear Jenkins, which passes even our 
powers. We can feel the beauty of a magnificent landscape, perhaps : 
but we can describe a leg of mutton and turnips better. Come, then, 
this scene is for our betters to depict. If Mr. Tennyson were to come 
hither for a month, and brood over the place, he might, in some of 
those lofty heroic lines which the author of the "Morte d' Arthur" 
knows how to pile up, convey to the reader a sense of this gigantic 
desolate scene. What ! you, too, are a poet ? Well, then, Jenkins, 
stay ! but believe me, you had best take my advice, and come off. 

The worthy landlady made her appearance with the politest of bows 
and an apology, — for what does the reader think a lady should apolo- 
gize in the most lonely rude spot in the world ? — because a plain 
servant-woman was about to brintr in the dinner, the waiter being 



312 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

absent on leave at Coleraine ! O heaven and earth ! where will the 
genteel end ? I replied philosophically that I did not care twopence for 
the plainness or beauty of the waiter, but that it was the dinner I 
looked to, the frying whereof made a great noise in the huge lonely 
house ; and it must be said, that though the lady was plain, the repast 
was exceedingly good. " I have expended my little all," says the land- 
lady, stepping in with a speech after dinner, " in the building of this 
establishment ; and though to a man its profits may appear small, to 
such a being as I am it will bring, I trust, a sufficient return ; " and on my 
asking her why she took the place, she replied that she had always, 
from her earliest youth, a fancy to dwell in that spot, and had accord- 
ingly realized her wish by building this hotel— this mausoleum. In 
spite of the bright fire, and the good dinner, and the good wine, it was 
impossible to feel comfortable in the place ; and when the car wheels 
were heard, I jumped up with joy to take my departure and forget the 
awful lonely shore, and that wild, dismal, genteel inn. A ride over a 
wide gusty country, in a grey, misty, half-moonlight, the loss of a wheel 
at Bushmills, and the escape from a tumble, were the delightful varieties 
after the late awful occurrences, " Such a being" as I am would die of 
loneliness in that hotel ; and so let all brother Cockneys be warned. 

Some time before we came to it, we saw the long line of mist that 
lay above the Bann, and coming through a dirty suburb of low cottages, 
passed down a broad street with gas and lamps in it (thank heaven, 
there are people once more !), and at length drove up in state, across a 
gas-pipe, in a market-place, before an hotel in the town of Coleraine, 
famous for linen and for Beautiful Kitty, "who must be old and ugly 
now, for it's a good hve-and-thirty years since she broke her pitcher, 
according to Mr. Moore's account of her. The scene as we entered 
the " Diamond " was rather a lively one — a score of little stalls were 
brilliant with lights ; the people were thronging in the place making 
their Saturday bargains ; the town clock began to toll nine ; and hark ! 
faithful to a minute, the horn of the Derry mail was heard tootooing, 
and four commercial gentlemen, with Scotch accents, rushed into the 
hotel at the same time with myself. 

Among the beauties of Coleraine may be m.entioned the price of 
beef, which a gentleman told me may be had for fourpence a pound ; 
and I saw him purchase an excellent codfish for a shilling. I am 
bound, too, to state for the benefit of aspiring Radicals, what two 
Conservative citizens of the place stated to me, viz. ;— that though 
there were two Conservative candidates then canvassing the town, on 
account of a vacancy in the representation, the voters were so truly 



COLERAINE. 313 

liberal that they would elect any person of any other political creed, 
who would simply bring money enough to purchase their votes. 
There are 220 voters, it appears ; of whom it is not, however, 
necessary to " argue " with more than fifty, who alone are open to con- 
viction ; but as parties are pretty equally balanced, the votes of the 
quinquagint, of course, carry an immense weight with them. Well, 
this is all discussed calmly standing on an inn-steps, with a jolly land- 
lord and a professional man of the town to give the information. So, 
heaven bless us, the ways of London are beginning to be known even 
here. Gentihty has already taken up her seat in the Giant's Causeway, 
where she apologizes for the plainness of her look : and, lo ! here is 
bribery, as bold as in the most civilized places — hundreds and hun- 
dreds of miles away from St. Stephen's and Pall Mall. I wonder, in 
that little island of Raghery, so wild and lonely, whether civilization is 
beginning to dawn upon them ? — whether they bribe and are genteel ? 
But for the rough sea of yesterday, I think I would have fled thither 
to make the trial. 

The town of Coleraine, with a number of cabin suburbs belonging 
to it, lies picturesquely grouped on the Bann river : and the whole of 
the little city was echoing with psalms as I walked through it on the 
Sunday morning. The piety of the people seems remarkable ; some 
of the inns even will not receive travellers on Sunday ; and this is 
written in an hotel, of which every room is provided with a Testament, 
containing an injunction on the part of the landlord to consider this 
world itself as only a passing abode. Is it well that Boniface should 
furnish his guest with Bibles as well as bills, and sometimes shut his 
door on a traveller, who has no other choice but to read it on a Sun- 
day 1 I heard of a gentleman arriving from ship-board at Kilrush on 
a Sunday, when the pious hotel-keeper refused him admittance ; and 
some more tales, which to go into would require the introduction of 
private names and circumstances, but would tend to show that the 
Protestant of the North is as much priest-ridden as the Catholic of the 
South : — priest and old woman-ridden, for there are certain expounders 
of doctrine in our Church, who are not, I believe, to be found in the 
Church of Rome ; and woe betide the stranger who comes to settle in 
these parts, if his " seriousness " be not satisfactory to the heads (with 
false fronts to most of them) of the congregations. 

Look at that little snug harbour of Portrush ! a hideous new castle 
standing on a rock protects it on one side, a snug row of gentlemen's 
cottages curves round the shore facing northward, a bath-house, an 
hotel, more smart houses, face the beach westward, defended by another 



314 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

mound of rocks. In the centre of the little town stands a new-built 
church ; and the whole place has an air of comfort and neatness which 
is seldom seen in Ireland. One would fancy that all the tenants of 
these pretty snug habitations, sheltered in this nook far away from the 
world, have nothing to do but to be happy, and spend their little 
comfortable means in snug little hospitalities among one another, and 
kind httle charities among the poor. What does a man in active 
life ask for more than to retire to such a competence, to such a snug 
nook of the world ; and there repose with a stock of healthy children 
round the fireside, a friend within call, and the means of decent hospi- 
tality wherewith to treat him ? 

Let any one meditating this pleasant sort of retreat, and charmed 
with the look of this or that place as pecuharly suited to his purpose, 
take a special care to understand his neighbourhood first, before he 
commit himself, by lease-signing or house-buying. It is not sufficient 
that you should be honest, kind-hearted, hospitable, of good family — 
what are your opinions upon religious subjects ? Are they such as 
agree with the notions of old Lady This, or Mrs. That, who are the 
patronesses of the village ? If not, woe betide you ! you will be 
shunned by the rest of the society, thwarted in your attempts to do 
good, whispered against over evangelical bohea and serious muffins. 
Lady This will inform every new arrival that you are a reprobate, and 
lost, and Mrs. That will consign you and your daughters, and your 
wife (a worthy woman, but, alas ! united to that sad worldly man !) to 
damnation. The clergyman who partakes of the muffins and bohea 
before mentioned, will very possibly preach sermons against you from 
the pulpit : this was not done at Portstewart to my knowledge, but I 
have had the pleasure of sitting under a minister in Ireland who 
insulted the very patron who gave him his living, discoursing upon 
the sinfulness of partridge-shooting, and threatening hell-fire as the 
last "meet"' for fox-hunters; until the squire, one of the best and 
most charitable resident landlords in Ireland, was absolutely driven out 
of the church where his fathers had worshipped for hundreds of years, 
by the insults of this howling evangelical inquisitor. 

So much as this I did not hear at Portstewart ; but I was told thtit 
at yonder neat-looking bath-house a dying woman was denied a bath 
on a Sunday. By a clause of the lease by which the bath-owner rents 
his establishment, he is forbidden to give baths to any one on the 
Sunday. The landlord of the inn, forsooth, shuts his gates on the 
same day. and his conscience on week days will not allow him to 
supply his guests with w^hisky or ardent spirits. I was told by my 



PUKITANLS.}f. 315 

friend, that because he refused to subscribe for some fancy charity, he 
received a letter to state that " he spent more in one dinner than in 
charity in the course of the year." My worthy friend did not care to 
contradict the statement, as why should a man deign to meddle with 
such a he ? But think how all the fishes, and all the pieces of meat, 
and all the people who went in and out of his snug cottage by the sea- 
side must have been watched by the serious round about ! The sea 
is not more constant roaring there, than scandal is whispering. How 
happy I felt, while hearing these histories (demure heads in crimped 
caps peeping over the blinds at us as we walked on the beach), to 
think I am a Cockney, and don't know the name of the man who hves 
next door to me. 

I have heard various stories, of course from persons of various ways 
of thinking, charging their opponents with hypocrisy, and proving the 
charge by statements clearly showing that the priests, the preachers, 
or the professing religionists in question, belied their professions 
wofully by their practice. But in matters of religion, hypocrisy is so 
awful a charge to make against a man, that I think it is almost unfair 
to mention even the cases in which it is proven, and which, — as, pray 
God, they are but exceptional, — a person should be very careful of 
mentioning, lest they be considered to apply generally. Tartiiffe has 
been always a disgusting play to me to see, in spite of its sense and its- 
wit ; and so, instead of printing, here or elsewhere, a few stories of the 
Tartufte kind which I have heard in Ireland, the best way will be to 
try and forget them. It is an awful thing to say of any man walking 
under God's sun by the side of us, " You are a hypocrite, lying as you 
use the Most Sacred Name, knowing that you lie while you use it." 
Let it be the privilege of any sect that is so minded, to imagine that 
there is perdition in store for all the rest of God's creatures who do not 
think with them : but the easy countercharge of hypocrisy, which the 
world has been in the habit of making in its turn, is surely just as fatal 
and bigoted an accusation as any that the sects make against the 
world. 

What has this disquisition to do apropos of a walk on the beach at 
Portstewart ? Why, it may be made here as well as in other parts of 
Ireland, or elsewhere as well, perhaps, as here. It is the most priest- 
ridden of countries; Catholic clergymen lord it over their ragged 
flocks, as Protestant preachers, lay and clerical, over their more genteel 
co-religionists. Bound to inculcate peace and good-will, their whole 
life is one of enmity and distrust. 

Walking away from the little bay and the disquisition which 



3i6 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

has somehow been raging there, we went across some wild dreary 
highlands to the neighbouring little town of Portrush, where is a neat 
town and houses, and a harbour, and a new church too, so like the 
last-named place that I thought for a moment we had only made a 
round, and were back again at Portstewart. Some gentlemen of the 
place, and my guide, who had a neighbourly liking for it, showed me 
the new church, and seemed to be well pleased with the edifice ; which 
is, indeed, a neat and convenient one, of a rather irregular Gothic. 
The best thing about the church, I think, was the history of it. The 
old church had lain some miles off, in the most inconvenient part of 
the parish, whereupon the clergyman and some of the gentry had 
raised a subscription in order to build the present church. The 
expenses had exceeded the estimates, or the subscriptions had fallen 
short of the sums necessary; and the church, in consequence, was 
opened with a debt on it, which the rector and two more of the gentry 
had taken on their shoulders. The living is a small one, the other 
two gentlemen going bail for the edifice not so rich as to think light 
of the payment of a couple of hundred pounds beyond their previous 
subscriptions— the lists are therefore still open; and the clergyman 
expressed himself perfectly satisfied either that he would be reimbursed 
one day or other, or that he would be able to make out the payment 
of the money for which he stood engaged. Most of the Roman 
Catholic churches that I have seen through the country have been 
built in this way, — begun when money enough was levied for con- 
structing the foundation, elevated by degrees as fresh subscriptions 
came in, and finished— by the way, I don't think I have seen one 
finished ; but there is something noble in the spirit (however certain 
economists may cavil at it) that leads people to commence these pious 
undertakings with the firm trust that " Heaven will provide," 

Eastward from Portrush, we came upon a beautiful level sand 
which leads to the White Rocks, a famous place of resort for the 
frequenters of the neighbouring watering-places. Here are caves, and 
for a considerable distance a view of the wild and gloomy Antrim 
coast as far as Bengore. Midway, jutting into the sea, (and I was 
glad it was so far off,) was the Causeway ; and nearer, the grey towers 
of Dunluce. 

Looking north, were the blue Scotch hills and the neighbouring 
Raghery Island. Nearer Portrush were two rocky islands, called the 
Skerries, of which a sportsman of our party vaunted the capabilities, 
regretting that my stay was not longer, so that I might land and shoot 
a few ducks there. This unlucky lateness of the season struck me also 



FORTRUSH CHURCH. 



317 



as a most afflicting circumstance. He said also that fish were caught 
off the island— not fish good to eat, but very strong at puUing, eager 
of biting, and affording a great deal of sport. And so we turned our 
backs once more upon the Giant's Causeway, and the grim coast on 




which it lies ; and as my taste in life leads me to prefer looking at the 
smiling fresh face of a young cheerful beauty, rather than at the fierce 
countenance and high features of a dishevelled Meg MerriHes, I must 
say again that I was glad to turn my back on this severe part of the 
Antrim coast, and my steps towards Derry. 



3i8 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK, 



CHAPTER XXX. 

PEG OF LIMAVADDY. 

ETWEEN Coleraine and 
Derry there is a daily car 
(besides one or two occasional 
queer-looking coaches), and I 
had this vehicle, with an 
intelligent driver, and a horse 
with a hideous raw on his 
shoulder, entirely to myself 
for the five-and-twenty miles 
of our journey. The cabins 
of Coleraine are not parted 
with in a hurry, and we 
crossed the bridge, and went 
up and down the hills of one 
of the suburban streets, the 
Bann flowing picturesquely to 
our left ; a large Catholic 
chapel, the before-mentioned 
cabins, and farther on, some neat-looking houses and plantations, to 
our right. Then we began ascending wide lonely hills, pools of bog 
shining here and there amongst them, with birds, both black and 
white, both geese and crows, on the hunt. Some of the stubble was 
already ploughed up, but by the side of most cottages you saw a black 
potato-field that it was time to dig now, for the weather was changing 
and the winds beginning to roar. Woods, whenever we passed them, 
were flinging round eddies of mustard-coloured leaves; the white 
trunks of lime and ash trees beginning to look very bare. 

Then we stopped to give the raw-backed horse water ; then we 
trotted down a hill with a noble bleak prospect of Lough Foyle and 
the surrounding mountains before us, until we reached the town of 
Newtown Limavaddy, where the raw-backed horse was exchanged for 




PEG OF LIMAVADDY. 



319 



another not much more agreeable in his appearance, though, hke his 
comrade, not slow on the road. 

Newtown Limavaddy is the third town in the county of London- 
derry. It comprises three well-built streets, the others are inferior ; 
it is, however, respectably inhabited : all this may be true, as the well- 
informed Guide-book avers, but I am bound to say that I was thinking 
of something else as we drove through the town, having fallen eternally 
in love during the ten minutes of our stay. 

Yes, Peggy of Limavaddy, if Barrow and Inglis have gone to 
Connemara to fall in love with the Misses Flynn, let us be allowed to 
come to Ulster and offer a tribute of praise at your feet— at your 
stockingless feet, O Margaret ! Do you remember the October day 
('twas the first day of the hard weather), when the way-worn traveller 
entered your inn ? But the circumstances of this passion had better 
be chronicled in deathless verse. 



PEG OF LIMAVADDY. 



Riding from Coleraine 
(Famed for lovely Kitty), 

Came a Cockney bound 
Unto Derry city ; 



Mountains stretch'd around, 

Gloomy was their tinting, 
And the horse's hoofs 

Made a dismal dinting ; 
Wind upon the heath 

Howling was and piping, 
On the heath and bog, 

Black with many a snipe in ; 
Mid the bogs of black, 

Silver pools were flashing, 
Crows upon their sides 

Picking were and splashing. 
Cockney on the car 

Closer folds his plaidy, 
Grumbling at the road 

Leads to Limavaddy. 

Through the crashing woods 
Autumn brawl'd and bluster' d, 

Tossing round about 

Leaves the hue of mustard ; 



Weary was his soul. 
Shivering and sad he 

Bumped along the road 
Leads to Limavaddy. 



Yonder lay Lough Foyle, 

Which a storm was whipping, 
Covering with mist 

Lake, and shores, and shipping. 
Up and down the hill 

(Nothing could be bolder), 
Horse went with a raw, 

Bleeding on his shoulder. 
'' Where are horses changed ?" 

vSaid I to the laddy 
Driving on the box : 

"Sir, at Limavaddy." 

Limavaddy inn's 

But a humble baithouse, 
Where you may procure 

Whisky and potatoes ; 
Landlord at the door 

Gives a smiling welcome 
To the shivering wights 

Who to his hotel come. 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



Landlady within 

Sits and knits a stocking, 
With a wary foot 

Baby's cradle rocking. 

To the chimney nook, 

Having found admittance, 
There I watch a pup 

Playing with two kittens ; 
\ Playing round the fire. 

Which of blazing turf is, 
Roaring to the pot [phies ;) 

Which bubbles with the mur- 
And the cradled babe 

Fond the mother nursed it ! 
Singing it a song 

As she twists the worsted ! 

Up and down the stair 

Two more young ones patter 
(Twins were never seen 

Dirtier nor fatter) ; 
Both have mottled legs. 

Both have snubby noses. 
Both have — Here the Host 

Kindly interposes : 
'* Sure you must be froze, 

With the sleet and hail, sir. 
So will you have some punch, 

Or will you have some ale, sir ?" 

Presently a maid 

Enters with the liquor, 
(Haifa pint of ale 

Frothing in a beaker). 
Gods ! I didn't know 

What my beating heart meant, 
Hebe's self I thought 

Enter' d the apartment. 
As she came she smiled, 

And the smile bewitching, 
On my word and honour. 

Lighted all the kitchen ! 

With a curtsey neat 

Greeting the new comer, 



Lovely, smiling Peg 

Offers me the rummer ; 
But my trembling hand 

Up the beaker lilted. 
And the glass of ale 

Every drop I spilt it : 
Spilt it every drop 

(Dames, who read my volumes, 
Pardon such a word, ) 

On my whatd'y call' ems ! 

Witnessing the sight 

Of that dire disaster, 
Out began to laugh 

Missis, maid, and master ; 
Such a merry peal, 

'Specially Miss Peg's was, 
(As the glass of ale 

Trickling down my legs was), 
That the joyful sound 

Of that ringing laughter 
Echoed in my ears 

Many a long day after. 

Such a silver peal .' 

In the meadows listening. 
You who've heard the bells 

Ringing to a christening ; 
You who ever heard 

Caradori pretty. 
Smiling like an angel 

Singing " Giovinetti," 
Fancy Peggy's laugh. 

Sweet, and clear and cheerful, 
At my pantaloons 

With half a pint of beer full ! 

When the laugh was done, 

Peg, the pretty hussy, 
INIoved about the room 

Wonderfully busy ; 
Now she looks to see 

If the kettle keep hot, 
Now she rubs the spoons. 

Now she cleans the teapot j 



PEG OF LIMAVADDY. 



Now she sets the cups 

Trimly and secure, 
Now she scours a pot 

And so it was I drew her. 



321 



Thus it was I drew her 
Scouring of a kettle.* 

(Faith ! her blushing cheeks 
Redden'd on the metal !) 




Ah ! but 'tis in vain 
That I try to sketch it ; 

The pot perhaps is like, 

But Peggy's face is wretched. 

No : the best of lead. 
And of Indian-rubber, 



Never could depict 

That sweet kettle-scrubber ! 

See her as she moves ! 

Scarce the ground she touches, 
Airy as a fay. 

Graceful as a duchess ; 



* The late Mr. Pope represents Camilla as '' scouring the plain,'''' 2i.\\?.h%-\xxa 
and useless task. Peggy's occupation with the kettle is much more simple and 
noble. The second line of this verse (whereof the author scorns to deny an 
obligation) is from the celebrated " Frithiof " of Esaias Tigner. A maiden is 
serving warriors to drink, and is standing by a shield — "Und die Runde des 
Schikles ward wie das Magdelein roth," — perhaps the above is the best thing 
in both poems. 

Y 



322 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



Bare her rounded arm, 
Bare her little leg is, 

Vestris never show'd 
Ankles like to Peggy's ; 



Braided is her hai 

Soft her look and modest, 
Slim her little waist 

Comfortably bodiced. 



This I do declare, 

Happy is the laddy 
Who the heart can share 

Of Peg of Limavaddy ; 
Married if she were, 

Blest would be the daddy 
Of the children fair 

Of Peg of Limavaddy ; 
Beauty is not rare 

In the land of Paddy, 
Fair beyond compare 

Is Peg of Limavaddy. 



Citizen or squire, 

Tory, Whig, or Radi- 
cal would all desire 

Peg of Limavaddy. 
Had I Homer's fire. 

Or that of Sergeant Taddy, 
Meetly I'd admire 

Peg of Limavaddy. 
And till I expire. 

Or till I grow mad, I 
Will sing unto my lyre 

Peg of Limavaddy ! 




THE PROPERTIES OF THE LONDON COMPANIES. 323 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

TEMPLEMOYLE— DERRY. 



ROM Newtown Limavaddy to 
Derry the traveller has many 
wild and noble prospects of 
Lough Foyle and the plains 
and mountains round it, and 
of scenes which may possibly 
in this country be still more 
agreeable to him — of smiling 
cultivation, and comfortable 
well-built villages, such as are 
only too rare in Ireland. Of 
a great part of this district the 
London Companies are land- 
lords — the best of landlords, 
too, according to the report I 
could gather; and their good 
stew^ardship shows itself espe- 
cially in the neat villages of 
Muff and Ballikelly, through both of which I passed. In Ballikelly, 
besides numerous simple, stout, brick-built dwellings for the peasantry, 
with their shining windows and trim garden-plots, is a Presbyterian 
meeting-house, so well-built, substantial, and handsome, so different 
from the lean, pretentious, sham-Gothic ecclesiastical edifices which 
have been erected of late years in Ireland, that it can't fail to strike 
the tourist who has made architecture his study or his pleasure. The 
gentlemen's seats in the district are numerous and handsome ; and 
the whole movement along the road betokened cheerfulness and pro- 
sperous activity. 

As the carman had no other passengers but myself, he made no 
objection to carry me a couple of miles out of his way, through 
the village of Muff, belonging to the Grocers of London (and so 

Y 2 




324 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

handsomely and comfortably built by them as to cause all Cockneys 
to exclaim, "Well done our side!") and thence to a very interesting 
institution, which was established some fifteen years since in the 
neighbourhood — the Agricultural Seminary of Templemoyle. It lies 
on a hill in a pretty wooded country, and is most curiously secluded 
from the world by the tortuousness of the road which approaches it. 

Of course it is not my business to report upon the agricultural 
system practised there, or to discourse on the state of the land or the 
crops; the best testimony on this subject is the fact, that the Institu- 
tion hired, at a small rental, a tract of land, which was reclaimed and 
farmed, and that of this farm the landlord has now taken possession, 
leaving the young farmers to labour on a new tract of land, for which 
they pay five times as much rent as for their former holding. But 
though a person versed in agriculture could give a far more satisfac- 
tory account of the place than one to whom such pursuits are quite 
unfamiliar, there is a great deal about the establishment which any 
citizen can remark on ; and he must be a very difficult Cockney indeed 
who won't be pleased here. 

After winding in and out, and up and down, and round about the 
eminence on which the house stands, we at last found an entrance to 
it, by a court -yard, neat, well-built, and spacious, where are the stables 
and numerous offices of the farm. The scholars were at dinner off a 
comfortable meal of boiled beef, potatoes, and cabbages, when I 
arrived ; a master was reading a book of history to them ; and silence, 
it appears, is preserved during the dinner. Seventy scholars were 
here assembled, some young, and some expanded into six feet and 
whiskers — all, however, are made to maintain exactly the same disci- 
pline, whether whiskered or not. 

The "head farmer" of the school, Mr. Campbell, a very intelligent 
Scotch gentleman, was good enough to conduct me over the place and 
the farm, and to give a history of the establishment and the course 
pursued there. The Seminary was founded in 1827, by the North- 
west of Ireland Society, by members of which and others about three 
thousand pounds were subscribed, and the buildings of the school 
erected. These are spacious, simple, and comfortable; there is a 
good stone house, with airy dormitories, school-rooms, &c., and large 
and convenient offices. The establishment had, at first, some diffi- 
culties to contend with, and for some time did not number more than 
thirty pupils. At present, there are seventy scholars,' paying ten 
pounds a year, with which sum, and the labour of the pupils on the 
farm, and the produce of it, the school is entirely supported. The 



AGRICULTURAL SEMINARY OF TEMPLEMOYLE. 325 

reader will, perhaps, like to see an extract from the Report of the 
school, which contains more details regarding it. 



" TEMPLEMOYLE WORK AND SCHOOL TABLE. 

'■'From 10th March to 2T,rd September. 

"Boys divided into two classes, A and B. 

Hours, At work. At school. 
5^ — All rise, 
6—8 A B 

8—9 Breakfast. 

9—1 A B 

I — 2 Dinner and recreation. 

2—6 B A 

6 — 7 Recreation. 

7—9 Prepare lessons for next day. 

9 — To bed. 

" On Tuesday B commences work in the morning and A at school, and so 
on alternate days. 

"Each class is again subdivided into three divisions, over each of which is 
placed a monitor, selected from the steadiest and best-informed boys ; he re- 
ceives the Head Farmer's directions as to the work to be done, and superintends 
his party while performing it. 

"In winter the time of labour is shortened according to the length of the 
day, and the hours at school increased. 

"In wet days, when the boys cannot work out, all are required to attend 
school. 

"Dietary, 

'' Breakfast.— l^ltwen ounces of oatmeal njade in stirabout, one pint of 
sweet milk. 

" Z?wwr.— Sunday. — Three quarters of a pound of beef stewed with pepper 
and onions, or one half-pound of corned beef with cabbage, and three and a 
half pounds of potatoes. 

"Monday — One half-pound of pickled beef, three and a half pounds of 
potatoes, one pint of buttermilk. 

" Tuesday— Broth made of one half-pound of beef, with leeks, cabbage, and 
parsley, and three and a half pounds of potatoes, 

" Wednesday — Two ounces of butter, eight ounces of oatmeal made into 
bread, three and a half pounds of potatoes, and one pint of sweet milk. 

" Thursday— Half a pound of pickled pork, with cabbage or turnips, and 
ihree and a half pounds of potatoes. 

" Friday— Two ounces of butter, eight ounces wheat meal made into bread, 
one pint of sweet milk or fresh buttermilk, three and a naif pounds of potatoes. 

" Saturday.— Two ounces of butter, one pound of potatoes mashed, eight 



326 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

ounces oi wneat meal made into bread, two and a half pounds of potatoes, one 
pint of buttermilk. 

" Supper. — In summer, flummery made of one pound of oatmeal seeds, and 
one pint of sweet milk. In winter, three and a half pounds of potatoes, and 
one pint of buttermilk or sweet milk. 

"Rules for the Te^^iplemoyle School. 

"I. The pupils are required to say their prayers in the morning, before 
leaving the dormitory, and at night, before retiring to rest, each separately, and 
after the manner to which he has been habituated. 

"2. The pupils are requested to wash their hands and faces before the 
commencement of business in the morning, on returning from agricultural 
labour, and after dinner. 

"3. The pupils are required to pay the strictest attention to their in- 
structors, both during the hours of agricultural and literary occupation. 

"4. Strife, disobedience, inattention, or any description of riotous or dis- 
orderly conduct, is punishable by extra labour or confinement, as directed by 
the Committee, according to circumstances. 

"5. Diligent and respectful behaviour, continued for a considerable time, 
will be rewarded by occasional permission for the pupil so distinguished to visit 
his home. 

"6. No pupil, on obtaining leave of absence, shall presume to continue it 
for a longer peiiod than that prescribed to him on leaving the Seminary. 

" 7. During their rural labour, the pupils are to consider themselves amen- 
able to the authority of their Agricultural Instructor alone, and during their 
attendance in the school-room, to that of their Literary Instructor alone. 

" 8. Non-attendance during any part of the time allotted either for literary 
or agricultural employment, will be punished as a serious offence. 

"9. During the hours of recreation the pupils are to be under the super- 
intendence of their Instructors, and not suffered to pass beyond the limits of 
the farm, except under their guidance, or with a written permission from one 
of them. 

" 10. The pupils are required to make up their beds, and keep those clothes 
not in immediate use neatly folded up in their trunks, and to be particular in 
never suffering any garment, book, implement, or other article belonging to or 
used by them, to lie about in a slovenly or disorderly manner. 

"II. Respect to superiors, and gentleness of demeanour, both among the 
pupils themselves and towards the servants and labourers of the establishment, 
are particularly insisted upon, and will be considered a prominent ground of 
approbation and reward. 

"12. On Sundays the pupils are required to attend their respective places 
of worship, accompanied by their Instructors or Monitors ; and it is earnestly 
recommended to them to employ a part of the remainder of the day in sin- 
cerely reading the Word of God, and in such other devotional exercises as their 
respective ministers may point out." 



TEMPLEMOYLE SCHOOL. 327 

At certain periods of the year, when all hands are requu'ea, such 
as harvest, &c., the literary labours of the scholars are stopped, and 
they are all in the field. On the present occasion we followed them 
into a potato-field, where an army of them were employed digging out 
the potatoes ; while another regiment were trenching-in elsewhere for 
the winter : the boys were leading the carts to and fro. To reach the 
potatoes we had to pass a field, part of which was newly ploughed : 
the ploughing was the work of the boys, too ; one of them being left 
with an experienced ploughman for a fortnight at a time, in which 
space the lad can acquire some practice in the art. Amongst the 
potatoes and the boys digging them, I observed a number of girls, 
taking them up as dug and removing the soil from the roots. Such a 
society for seventy young men would, in any other country in the 
world, be not a little dangerous ; but Mr. Campbell said that no 
instance of harm had ever occurred in consequence, and I believe his 
statement may be fully relied on : the whole country bears testimony 
to this noble purity of morals. Is there any other in Europe which in 
this point can compare with it ? 

In winter the farm works do not occupy the pupils so much, and 
they give more time to their literary studies. They get a good 
English education ; they are grounded in arithmetic and mathematics ; 
and I saw a good map of an adjacent farm, made from actual survey 
by one of the pupils. Some of them are good draughtsmen likewise 
but of their performances I could see no specimen, the artists being 
abroad, occupied wisely in digging the potatoes. 

And here, apropos, not of the school but of potatoes, let me tell a 
potato story, which is, I think, to the purpose, wherever it is told. In 
the county of Mayo a gentleman by the name of Crofton is a landed 
proprietor, in whose neighbourhood great distress prevailed among 
the peasantry during the spring and summer, when the potatoes of 
the last year were consumed, and before those of the present season 
were up. Mr. Crofton, by liberal donations on his own part, and by a 
subscription which was set on foot among his friends in England as 
well as in Ireland, was enabled to collect a sum of money sufficient to 
purchase meal for the people, which was given to them, or sold at 
very low prices, until the pressure of want was withdrawn, and the 
blessed potato-crop came in. Some time in October, a smart night's 
frost made Mr. Crofton think that it was time to take in and pit his 
own potatoes, and he told his steward to get labourers accordingly. 

Next day, on gomg to the potato-grounds, he found the whole 
fields swarming with people; the whole crop was out of the ground. 



328 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

and again under it, pitted and covered, and the people gone, in a few 
hours. It was as if the fairies that we read of in the Irish legends, as 
coming to the aid of good people and helping them in their labours, 
had taken a liking to this good landlord, and taken in his harvest for 
him. Mr. Crofton, who knew who his helpers had been, sent the 
steward to pay them their day's wages, and to thank them at the 
same time for having come to help him at a time when their labour 
was so useful to him. One and all refused a penny; and their 
spokesman said, " They wished they could do more for the likes of 
him or his family." I have heard of many conspiracies in this 
country ; is not this one as worthy to be told as any of them ? 

Round the house of Templemoyle is a pretty garden, which the 
pupils take pleasure in cultivating, filled not with fruit (for this, though 
there are seventy gardeners, the superintendent said somehow seldom 
reached a ripe state), but with kitchen herbs, and a few beds of pretty 
flowers, such as are best suited to cottage horticulture. Such simple 
carpenters' and masons' work as the young men can do is likewise 
confided to them ; and though the dietary may appear to the English- 
man as rather a scanty one, and though the English lads certainly 
make at first very wry faces at the stirabout porridge (as they 
naturally will when first put in the presence of that abominable 
mixture), yet after a time, strange to say, they begin to find it actually 
palatable; and the best proof of the excellence of the diet is, that 
nobody is ever ill in the institution ; colds and fevers and the ailments 
of lazy, gluttonous gentility, are unknown ; and the doctor's bill for 
the last year, for seventy pupils, amounted to thirty-five shillings. O 
beati agricolicidcc ! You do not know what it is to feel a little uneasy 
after half-a-crown's worth of raspberry-tarts, as lads do at the best 
public schools ; you don't know in what majestic polished hexameters 
the Roman poet has described your pursuits; you are not fagged and 
flogged into Latin and Greek at the cost of two hundred pounds a 
year. Let these be the privileges of your youthful betters ; meanwhile 
content yourselves with thinking that you are preparing for a pro- 
fession, while they are not; that you are learning something useful, 
while they, for the most part, are not : for after all, as a man grows 
old in the world, old and fat, cricket is discovered not to be any 
longer very advantageous to him — even to have pulled in the Trinity 
boat does not in old age amount to a substantial advantage; and 
though to read a Greek play be an immense pleasure, yet it must be 
confessed few enjoy it. In the first place, of the race of Etonians, 
and Harrovians, and Carthusians that one meets in the world, very 



TEMPLEMOYLE, OR ETON? 329 

few can read the Greek ; of those few — there are not, as I believe, any 
considerable majority of poets. Stout men in the bow-windows of 
clubs (for such young Etonians by time become) are not generally 
remarkable for a taste for yEschylus.* You do not hear much poetry 
in Westminster Hall, or I believe at the bar-tables afterwards; and if 
occasionally, in the House of Commons, Sir Robert Peel lets off a 
quotation— a pocket-pistol wadded with a leaf torn out of Horace — 
depend on it it is only to astonish the country gentlemen who don't 
understand him : and it is my firm conviction that Sir Robert no more 
cares for poetry than you or I do. 

Such thoughts would suggest themselves to a man who has had 
the benefit of what is called an education at a public school in 
England, when he sees seventy lads from all parts of the empire 
learning what his Latin poets and philosophers have informed him is 
the best of all pursuits, — finds them educated at one-twentieth part of 
the cost which has been bestowed on his own precious person ; 
orderly without the necessity of submitting to degrading personal 
punishment; young, and full of health and blood, though vice is 
unknown among them; and brought up decently and honestly to 
know the things which it is good for them in their profession to know. 
So it is, however ; all the world is improving except the gentlemen. 
There are at this present VN^riting five hundred boys at Eton, kicked, 
and licked, and bulked, by another hundred — scrubbing shoes, running 
errands, making false concords, and (as if that were a natural conse- 
quence !) putting their posteriors on a block for Dr. Hawtrey to lash 
at; and still calling it education. They are proud of it — good 
heavens! — absolutely vain of it; as what dull barbarians are not 
proud of their dulness and barbarism ? They call it the good old 
English system : nothing like classics, says Sir John, to give a boy a 
taste, you know, and a habit of reading — (Sir John, who reads the 
" Racing Calendar," and belongs to a race of men of all the world the 
least given to reading,) — it's the good old English system ; every boy 
fights for himself — hardens 'em, eh, Jack.^ Jack grins, and helps 
himself to another glass of claret, and presently tells you how Tibbs 
and Miller fought for an hour and twenty minutes " like good uns." 
. . . Let us come to an end, however, of this moralizing; the car- 
driver has brought the old raw-shouldered horse out of the stable, and 
says it is time to be off again. 

* And then, how much Latin and Greek does the public school-boy know ? 
Also, does he know anything else, and what? Is it history, or geography, or 
mathematics, or divinity ? 



330 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

Before quitting Templemoyle, one thing more may be said in its 
favour. It is one of the very few pubhc estabhshments in Ireland 
where pupils of the two religious denominations are received, and 
where no religious disputes have taken place. The pupils are called 
upon, morning and evening, to say their prayers privately. On 
Sunday, each division, Presbyterian, Roman CathoHc, and Episco- 
palian, is marched to its proper place of worship. The pastors of 
each sect may visit their young flock when so inclined ; and the lads 
devote the Sabbath evening to reading the books pointed out to them 
by their clergymen. 

Would not the Agricultural Society of Ireland, of the success of 
whose peaceful labours for the national prosperity every Irish news- 
paper I read brings some new indication, do well to show some mark 
of its sympathy for this excellent institution of Templemoyle ? A 
silver medal given by the Society to the most deserving pupil of the 
year, would be a great object of emulation amongst the young men 
educated at the place, and would be almost a certain passport for the 
winner in seeking for a situation in after life. I do not know if 
similar seminaries exist in England. Other seminaries of a like 
nature have been tried in this country, and have failed : but English 
country gentlemen cannot, I should think, find a better object of their 
attention than this school; and our farmers would surely find 
such establishments of great benefit to them : where their children 
might procure a sound literary education at a small charge, and at 
the same time be made acquainted with the latest improvements in 
their profession. I can't help saying here, once more, what I have 
said apropos of the excellent school at Dundalk, and begging the 
English middle classes to think of the subject. If Government will 
not act (upon what never can be effectual, perhaps, until it become a 
national measure), let small communities act for themselves, and 
tradesmen and the middle classes set up cheap proprietary 
SCHOOLS. Will country newspaper editors, into whose hands this 
book may fall, be kind enough to speak upon this hint, and extract 
the tables of the Templemoyle and Dundalk establishments, to show 
how, and with what small means, boys may be well, soundly, and 
humanely educated — not brutally, as some of us have been, under the 
bitter fagging and the shameful rod. It is no plea for the barbarity 
that use has made us accustomed to it ; and in seeing these institu- 
tions for humble lads, where the system taught is at once useful, 
manly, and kindly, and thinking of what I had undergone in my own 
youth, — of the frivolous monkish trifling in which it was wasted, of 



DERRV. 331 

the brutal tyranny to which it was subjected,— I could not look at the 
lads but with a sort of envy : please God, their lot will be shared by 
thousands of their equals and their betters before long ! 

It was a proud day for Dundalk, Mr. Thackeray well said, when, 
at the end of one of the vacations there, fourteen English boys, and an 
Englishman with his little son in his hand, landed from the Liverpool 
packet, and, walking through the streets of the town, went into the 
school-house quite happy. That was a proud day in truth for a dis- 
tant Irish town, and I can't help saying that I grudge them the cause 
of their pride somewhat. Why should there not be schools in England 
as good, and as cheap, and as happy ? 

With this, shaking Mr. Campbell gratefully by the hand, and 
begging all English tourists to go and visit his estabhshment, wc 
trotted off for Londonderry, leaving at about a mile's distance from the 
town, and at the pretty lodge of Saint Columb's, a letter, which was 
the cause of much delightful hospitality. 

Saint Columb's Chapel, the walls of which still stand picturesquely 
in Sir George Hill's park, and from which that gentleman's seat takes 
its name, was here since the sixth century. It is but fair to give pre- 
cedence to the mention of the old abbey, which was the father, as it 
would seem, of the town. The approach to the latter from three 
cjuarters, certainly, by which various avenues I had occasion to see it, 
is always noble. We had seen the spire of the cathedral peering over 
the hills for four miles on our way ; it stands, a stalwart and handsome 
building, upon an eminence, round which tlie old-fashioned stout red 
houses of the town cluster, girt in with the ramparts and walls that 
kept out James's soldiers of old. Quays, factories, huge red ware- 
houses, have grown round this famous old barrier, and now stretch 
along the river. A couple of large steamers and other craft lay within 
the bridge ; and, as we passed over that stout wooden edifice, stretch- 
ing eleven hundred feet across the noble expanse of the Foyle, we 
heard along the quays a great thundering and clattering of iron-work 
in an enormous steam frigate which has been built in Derry, and seems 
to lie alongside a whole street of houses. The suburb, too, through 
which we passed was bustling and comfortable ; and the view was not 
only pleasing from its natural beauties, but has a manly, thriving, honest 
air of prosperity, which is no bad feature surely, for a landscape. 

Nor does the town itself, as one enters it, belie, as many other Irish 
towns do, its first flourishing look. It is not splendid, but comfortable ; 
a brisk movement in the streets : good downright shops, without 
parti culariv tjrand titles ; few beggars. Nor have the common people. 



23^ THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

as they address you, that eager smile, — that manner of compound 
fawning and swaggering, which an Enghshman finds in the towns- 
people of the West and South. As in the North of England, too, 
when compared with other districts, the people are greatly more 
familiar, though by no means disrespectful to the stranger. 

On the other hand, after such a commerce as a traveller has with 
the race of waiters, postboys, porters, and the like (and it may be that 
the vast race of postboys, (Sec, whom I did not see in the North, are 
quite unlike those unlucky specimens with whom I came in contact), I 
was struck by their excessive greediness after thie traveller's gratuities, 
and their fierce dissatisfaction if not sufficiently rewarded. To the 
gentleman who brushed my clothes at the comfortable hotel at Belfast, 
and carried my bags to the coach, I tendered the sum of two shillings, 
which seemed to me quite a sufficient reward for his services : he 
battled and brawled with me for more, and got it too ; for a street- 
dispute with a porter calls together a number of delighted bystanders, 
whose remarks and company are by no means agreeable to a solitary 
gentleman. Then, again, there was the famous case of Boots of 
Ballycastle, which, being upon the subject, I may as well mention here : 
Boots of Ballycastle, that romantic little village near the Giant's 
Causeway, had cleaned a pair of shoes for me certainly, but declined 
either to brush my clothes, or to carry down my two carpet-bags to the 
vcar ; leaving me to perform those offices for myself, which I did : and 
indeed they were not very difficult. But immediately I was seated on 
the car, Mr. Boots stepped forward and wrapped a mackintosh very 
considerately round me, and begged me at the same time to "re- 
member him." 

There was an old beggar-woman standing by, to whom I had a 
desire to present a penny : and having no coin of that value, I begged 
?.Ir. Boots, out of sixpence which I tendered to him, to subtract a 
penny, and present it to the old lady in question. Mr. Boots took 
the money, looked at me, and his countenance, not naturally good- 
humoured, assumed an expression of the most indignant contempt and 
hatred as he said, " Fm thinking I've no call to give my money away. 
Sixpence is my right for what I've done." 

" Sir," says I, " you must remember that you did but black one pair 
of shoes, and that you blacked them very badly too." 

" Sixpence is my right," says Boots ; '■^ 2i gentleman would give me 
sixpence ! " and though I represented to him that a pair of shoes might 
be blacked in a minute — that fivepence a minute was not usual wages 
in the country — that many gentlemen, half-pay officers, briefless 



HOTEL PIETY. 333 

barristers, unfortunate literary gentlemen, would gladly black twelve 
pairs of shoes per diem if rewarded with five shillings for so doing, 
there was no means of convincing Mr. Boots. I then demanded back 
the sixpence, which proposal, however, he declined, saying, after a 
struggle, he would give the money, but a gentleman would have given 
sixpence ; and so left me with furious rage and contempt. 

As for the city of Derry, a carman who drove me one mile out to 
dinner at a gentleman's house, where he himself was provided with a 
comfortable meal, was dissatisfied with eighteenpence, vowing that a 
"dinner job " was always paid half-a-crown, and not only asserted this, 
but continued to assert it for a quarter of an hour with the most noble 
though unsuccessful perseverance. A second car-boy, to whom I gave 
a shilling for a drive of two miles altogether, attacked me because I 
gave the other boy eighteenpence ; and the porter who brought my 
bags fifty yards from the coach, entertained me with a dialogue that 
lasted at least a couple of minutes, and said, " I should have had 
sixpence for carrying one of 'em." 

For the car which carried me two miles the landlord of the inn 
made me pay the sum of five shillings. He is a godly landlord, has 
Bibles in the cotTee-room, the drawing-room, and every bed-room in 
the house, v.'ith this inscription — 

UT MIGRATURUS HABITA. 

THE traveller's TRUE REFUGE. 

Jones's Hotel, Londonderry. 

This pious double or triple entendre, the reader will, no doubt, 
admire — the first simile establishing the resemblance between this life 
and an inn ; the second allegory showing that the inn and the Bible 
are both the traveller's refuge. 

In life we are in death — the hotel in question is about as gay as a 
family vault : a severe figure of a landlord, in seedy black, is occasion- 
ally seen in the dark passages or on the creaking old stairs of the black 
inn. He does not bow to you — very few landlords in Ireland 
condescend to acknowledge their guests — he only warns you :— a 
silent solemn gentleman who looks to be something between a clergy- 
man and a sexton— " ut migraturus habita !"~the "migraturus" was 
a vast comfort in the clause. 

It must, however, be said, for the consolation of future travellers, 
that when at evening, in the old lonely parlour of the inn, the great 
gaunt fireplace is filled with coals, two dreary funereal candles and 
sticks glimmering upon the old-fashioned round table, the rain 



334 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

pattering fiercely without, the wind roaring and thumping in the streets, 
this worthy gentleman can produce a pint of port-wine for the use of 
his migratory guest, which causes the latter to be almost reconciled to 
the cemetery in which he is resting himself, and he finds himself, to his 
surprise, almost cheerful. There is a mouldy-looking old kitchen, 
too, which, strange to say, sends out an excellent comfortable dinner, 
so that the sensation of fear gradually wears off". 

As in Chester, the ramparts of the town form a pleasant promenade ; 
and the batteries, with a few of the cannon, are preserved, with which 
the stout 'prentice boys of Derry beat off King James in '88. The guns 
bear the names of the London Companies— venerable Cockney titles ! 
It is pleasant for a Londoner to read them, and see how, at a pinch, 
the sturdy citizens can do their work. 

The public buildings of Derry are, I think, among the best I 
have seen in Ireland ; and the Lunatic Asylum, especially, is to be 
pointed out as a model of neatness and comfort. When will the 
middle classes be allowed to send their own afflicted relatives to 
public institutions of this excellent kind, where violence is never 
practised — where it is never to the interest of the keeper of the 
asylum to exaggerate his patient's malady, or to retain him in 
durance, for the sake of the enormous sums which the sufferers 
relatives are made to pay ? The gentry of three counties which 
contribute to the Asylum have no such resource for members of their 
own body, should any be so afflicted — the condition of entering this 
admirable asylum is, that the patient must be a pauper, and on this 
account he is supplied with every comfort and the best curative means, 
and his relations are in perfect security. Are the rich in any way so 
lucky ? — and if not, why not ? 

The rest of the occurrences at Derry belong, unhappily, to the 
domain of private life, and though very pleasant to recall, are not 
honestly to be printed. Otherwise, what popular descriptions might 
be written of the hospitalities of Saint Columb's, of the jovialities of the 
mess of the — th Regiment, of the speeches made and the songs sung, 
and the devilled turkey at twelve o'clock, and the headache after- 
wards ; all which events could be described in an exceedingly face- 
tious manner. But these amusements are to be met with in every 
other part of her Majesty's dominions ; and the only point which may 
be mentioned here as peculiar to this part of Ireland, is the difference 
of the manner of the gentry to that in the South. The Northern 
manner is far more English than that of the other provinces of 
Ireland— whether it is better ior being English is a question of taste, 
of which an Englishman can scarcely be a fair judge. 



THE PICTURESQUE UNDER DIFFICULTIES, 335 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

dui;lin at last. 



WEDDING-PARTY that 
went across Derry Bridge 
to the sound of bell and 
cannon, had to flounder 
through a thick coat of 
frozen snow, that covered 
the shppery planks, and 
the hills round about were 
whitened over by the same 
inclement material. Nor 
was the weather, implacable 
towards young lovers and 
unhappy buckskin postilions 
shivering in white favours, at 
all more polite towards the 
passengers of her Majesty's 
mail that runs from Derry to 
Ballyshannon. 

Hence the aspect of the country between those two places can 
only be described at the rate of ninQ miles an hour, and from such 
points of observation as may be had through a coach window, starred 
with ice and mud. While horses were changed we saw a very dirty 
town, called Strabane ; and had to visit the old house of the O'Donnels 
in Donegal during a quarter-of-an-hour's pause that the coach made 
there — and with an umbrella overhead. The pursuit of the picturesque 
under umbrellas let us leave to more venturesome souls: the fine 
weather of the finest season known for many long years in Ireland 
was over, and I thought with a great deal of yearning of Pat the 
waiter, at the " Shelburne Hotel," Stephen's Green, Dublin, and the 
gas lamps, and the covered cars, and the good dinners to which they 
take you. 

Farewell, then, O wild Donegal ! and ye stern passes through 




336 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

which the astonished traveller windeth ! Farewell, Ballyshannon, 
and thy salmon-leap, and thy bar of sand, over which the white head 
of the troubled Atlantic was peeping ! Likewise, adieu to Lough 
Erne, and its numberless green islands, and winding river-lake, and 
wavy fir-clad hills ! Good-bye, moreover, neat Enniskillen, over the 
bridge and churches whereof the sun peepeth as the coach starteth 
from the inn ! See, how he shines now on Lord Belmore's stately 
palace and park, with gleaming porticoes and brilliant grassy chases : 
now, behold he is yet higher in the heavens, as the twanging horn 
proclaims the approach to beggarly Cavan, where a beggarly breakfast 
awaits the hungry voyager. 

Snatching up a roll wherewith to satisfy the pangs of hunger, 
sharpened by the mockery of breakfast, the tourist now hastens in his 
arduous course, through Virginia, Kells, Navan, by Tara's threadbare 
mountain, and Skreen's green hill ; day darkens, and a hundred 
thousand lamps twinkle in the grey horizon — see above the darkling 
trees a stumpy column rise, see on its base the name of Wellington 
(though this, because 'tis night, thou canst not see), and cry, "It is the 
Phaynix!"' — On and on, across the iron bridge, and through the 
streets (dear streets, though dirty, to the citizen's heart how dear you 
be !) and lo, now, with a bump, the dirty coach stops at the seedy inn, 
six ragged porters battle for the bags, six wheedling carmen recom- 
mend their cars, and (giving first the coachman eighteenpence) the 
Cockney says, "Drive, car-boy, to the ' Shelburne.' " 

And so having reached Dublin, it becomes necessary to curtail the 
observations which were to be made upon that city ; which surely 
ought to have a volume to itself : the humours of Dublin at least 
require so much space. For instance, there was the dinner at the 
Kildare Street Club, or the Hotel opposite, — the dinner in Trinity 

College Hall, — that at Mr. , the publisher's, where a dozen of the 

literary men of Ireland were assembled, — and those (say fifty) with 
Harry Lorrequer himself, at his mansion of Templeogue. What a 
favourable opportunity to discourse upon the peculiarities of Irish 
character ! to describe men of letters, of fashion, and university dons ! 

Sketches of these personages may be prepared, and sent over, 
perhaps, in confidence to Mrs. Sigourney in America — (who will of 
course not print them) — but the English habit does not allow of these 
happy communications between writers and the public ; and the 
author who wishes to dine again at his friend's cost, must needs have 
a care how he puts him in print. 

Suffice it to say, that at Kildare Street we had white neckcloths, 



DIANE RS IN DUBLIN. 337 

black waiters, wax-candles, and some of the best wine in Europe ; at 

Mr. , the pubhsher's, wax-candles, and some of the best wine in 

Europe ; at Mr. Lever's, wax-candles, and some of the best wine in 
Europe ; at Trinity College — but there is no need to mention what 
took place at Trinity College ; for on returning to London, and re- 
counting the circumstances of the repast, my friend B , a Master 

of Arts of that university, solemnly declared the thing was impos- 
sible : — no stranger could dine at Trinity College ; it was too great a 
privilege— in a word, he would not believe the story, nor will he to 
this day ; and why, therefore, tell it in vain ? 

I am sure if the Fellows of Colleges in Oxford and Cambridge 
were told that the Fellows of T. C. D. only drink beer at dinner, they 
would not believe that. Such, however, was the fact : or may be it 
was a dream, which was followed by another dream of about four-and- 
twenty gentlemen seated round a common-room table after dinner; 
and, by a subsequent vision of a tray of oysters in the apartments of a 
tutor of the university, sometime before midnight. Did we swallow 
them or not .'' — the oysters are an open question. 

Of the Catholic College of Maynooth, I must likewise speak briefly, 
for the reason that an accurate description of that establishment 
would be of necessity so disagreeable, that it is best to pass it over in 
a few words. An Irish union -house is a palace to it. Ruin so need- 
less, filth so disgusting, such a look of lazy squalor, no Englishman 
who has not seen can conceive. Lecture-room and dining-hall, 
kitchen and students'-room, were all the same. I shall never forget 
the sight of scores of shoulders of mutton lying on the filthy floor in 
the former, or the view of a bed and dressing-table that I saw in the 
other. Let the next Maynooth grant include a few shillings'-worth of 
whitewash and a few hundredweights of soap ; and if to this be added 
a half-score of drill-sergeants, to see that the students appear clean at 
lecture, and to teach them to keep their heads up and to look people 
in the face. Parliament will introduce some, cheap reforms into the 
seminary, which were never needed more than here. Why should 
the place be so shamefully ruinous and foully dirty ? Lime is cheap, 
and water plenty at the canal hard by. Why should a stranger, after 
a week's stay in the country, be able to discover a priest by the scowl 
on his face, and his doubtful downcast manner? Is it a point of 
disciphne that his reverence should be made to look as ill-humoured 
as possible ? And I hope these words will not be taken hostilely. 
It would have been quite as easy, and more pleasant, to say the 
contrary, had the contrary seemed to me to have been the fact ; 

z 



338 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



and to have declared that the priests were remarkable for their 
expression of candour, and their college for its extreme neatness and 
cleanliness. 

This complaint of neglect applies to other public institutions 
besides Maynooth. The Mansion-house, when I saw it, was a very 
dingy abode for the Right Honourable Lord Mayor, and that Lord 
Mayor Mr. O'Connell. I saw him in full council, in a brilliant robe 
of crimson velvet, ornamented with white satin bows and sable collar, 
in an enormous cocked-hat, like a slice of an eclipsed moon — in the 
following costume, in fact— 







The Aldermen and Common Council, in a black oak parlour, and 
at a dingy green table, were assembled around him, and a debate of 
thrilling interest to the town ensued. It related, I think, to water- 
pipes ; the great man did not speak pubhcly, but was occupied chiefly 
at the end of the table, giving audiences to at least a score of clients 
and petitioners. 

The next day I saw him in the famous Corn Exchange. The 



THE LORD MAYOR. 339 

building without has a substantial look, but the hall within is rude, 
dirty, and ill-kept. Hundreds of persons were assembled in the black, 
steaming place ; no inconsiderable share of frieze-coats were among 
them ; and many small Repealers, who could but lately have assumed 
their breeches, ragged as they were. These kept up a great chorus of 
shouting, and " hear, hear ! " at every pause in the great Repealer's 
address. Mr. O'Connell was reading a report from his Repeal- 
wardens ; which proved that when Repeal took place, commerce and 
prosperity would instantly flow into the country ; its innumerable 
harbours would be filled with countless ships, its immense water-power 
would be directed to the turning of myriads of mills ; its vast energies 
and resources brought into full action. At the end of the report, three 
cheers were given for Repeal, and in the midst of a great shouting 
Mr. O'Connell leaves the room. 

" Mr. OuigJan, Mr. Ouiglan ! " roars an active aide-de-camp to the 
door-keeper, " a covered kyar for the Lard Mayre." The covered car 
came ; I saw his lordship get into it. Next day he was Lord Mayor 
no longer ; but Alderman O'Connell in his state-coach, with the 
handsome greys whose manes were tied up with green ribbon, fol- 
lowing the new Lord Mayor to the right honourable inauguration. 
J-avelin men, city marshals (looking like military undertakers), private 
carriages, glass coaches, cars, covered and uncovered, and thousands 
of yelling ragamuffins, formed the civic procession of that faded, worn- 
out, insolvent old Dublin Corporation. 

The walls of this city had been placarded with huge notices to 
the public, that O'Connell's rent-day was at hand ; and I went round 
to all the chapels in town on that Sunday (not a little to the scandal 
of some Protestant friends), to see the popular behaviour. Every 
door was barred, of course, with plate-holders ; and heaps of pence 
at the humble entrances, and bank-notes at the front gates, told the 
willingness of the people to reward their champion. The car-boy 
who drove me had paid his little tribute of fourpence at morning 
mass ; the waiter who brought my breakfast had added to the national 
subscription with his humble shilling ; and the Catholic gentleman 
with whom I dined, and between whom and Mr. O'Connell there is 
no great love lost, pays his annual donation, out of gratitude for old 
services, and to the man who won Catholic Emancipation for Ireland. 
The piety of the people at the chapels .is a sight, too, always well 
worthy to behold. Nor indeed is this religious fervour less in the 
Protestant places of worship : the warmth and attention of the con- 
gregation, the enthusiasm with which hymns are sung and responses 

z 2 



340 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



uttered, contrasts curiously with the cool formality of worshippers at 
home. 

The service at Saint Patrick's is finely sung; and the shameless 
English custom of retreating after the anthem, is properly prevented 
by locking the gates, and having the music after the sermon. The 
interior of the cathedral itself, however, to an Englishman who has 
seen the neat and beautiful edifices of his own country, will be any- 
thing but an object of admiration. The greater part of the huge old 
building is suffered to remain in gaunt decay, and with its stalls of 




sham Gothic, and the tawdry old rags and gimcracks of the ''most 
illustrious order of Saint Patrick," (whose pasteboard helmets, and 
calico banners, and lath swords, well characterize the humbug of 
chivalry which they are made to represent,) looks like a theatre behind 
the scenes. " Paddy's Opera," however, is a noble performance ; and 
the EngHshman may here listen to a half-hour sermon, and in the 
anthem to a bass singer whose voice is one of the finest ever heard. 

The Dram.a does not flourish much more in Dublin than in any 
other part of the country'. Operatic stars make their appearance 



AMUSEMENTS. 341 

occasionally, and managers lose money. I was at a fine concert, at 
which Lablache and others performed, where there were not a 
hundred people in the pit of the pretty theatre, and where the only 
encore given was to a young woman in ringlets and yellow satin, who 
stepped forward and sang " Coming through the rye," or some other 
scientific composition, in an exceedingly small voice. On the nights 
when the regular drama was enacted, the audience was still smaller. 
The theatre of Fishamble Street was given up to the performances of 
the Rev. Mr. (iregg and his Protestant company, whose soirees I 
did not attend ; and, at the Abbey Street Theatre, whither I went in 
order to see, if possible, some specimens of the national humour, I 
found a company of English people ranting through a melodrama, the 
tragedy whereof was the only laughable thing to be witnessed. 

Humbler popular recreations may be seen by the curious. One 
night I paid twopence to see a puppet-show — such an entertainment 
as may have been popular a hundred and thirty years ago, and is 
described in the Spectator. But the company here assembled were 
not, it scarcely need be said, of the genteel sort. There were a score 
of boys, however, and a dozen of labouring men, who were quite happy 
and contented with the piece performed, and loudly applauded. Then 
in passing homewards of a night, you hear, at the humble public-houses, 
the sound of many a fiddle, and the stamp of feet dancing the good 
old jig, which is still maintaining a struggle with teetotalism, and, 
though vanquished now, may rally some day and overcome the enemy. 
At Kingstown, especially, the old *' fire-worshippers " yet seem to 
muster pretty strongly ; loud is the music to be heard in the taverns 
there, and the cries of encouragement to the dancers. 

Of the numberless amusements that take place in the Phayiiix^ it 
is not very necessary to speak. Here you may behold garrison races, 
and reviews ; lord-lieutenants in brown great-coats ; aides-de-camp 
scampering about like mad in blue ; fat colonels roaring " charge " to 
immense heavy dragoons ; dark riflemen lining woods and firing ; 
galloping cannoneers banging and blazing right and left. Here comes 
his Excellency the Commander-in-Chief, with his huge feathers, and 
white hair, and hooked nose ; and yonder sits his Excellency the 
Ambassador from the republic of Topinambo in a glass coach, smok- 
ing a cigar. The honest Dubhnites make a great deal of such small 
dignitaries as his Excellency of the glass coach ; you hear everybody 
talking of him, and asking which is he ; and when presently one of 
Sir Robert Peel's sons makes his appearance on the course, the public 
rush delighted to look at him. 



342 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

They love great folks, those honest Emerald Islanders, more 
intensely than any people I ever heard of, except the Americans. 
They still cherish the memory of the sacred George IV. They 
chronicle genteel small beer with never-failing assiduity. They go in 
long trains to a sham court — simpering in tights and bags, with swords 
between their legs. O heaven and earth, what joy ! Why are the 
Irish noblemen absentees 1 If their lordships like respect, where 
would they get it so well as in their own country ? 

The Irish noblemen are very likely going through the same 
delightful routine of duty before their real sovereign — in real tights 
and bag-wigs, as it were, performing their graceful and lofty duties, 
and celebrating the august service of the throne. These, of course, 
the truly loyal heart can only respect : and I think a drawing-room at 
St. James's the grandest spectacle that ever feasted the eye or exer- 
cised the intellect. The crown, surrounded by its knights and nobles, 
its priests, its sages, and their respective ladies ; illustrious foreigners, 
men learned in the law, heroes of land and sea, beef-eaters, gold-sticks, 
gentlemen-at-arms, rallying round the throne and defending it with 
those swords which never knew defeat (and would surely, if tried, 
secure victory) : these are sights and characters which every man 
must look upon with a thrill of respectful awe, and count amongst the 
glories of his country. What lady that sees this will not confess that 
she reads every one of the drawing-room costumes, from Majesty 
down to Miss Ann Maria Smith ; and all the names of the presenta- 
tions, from Prince Baccabocksky (by the Russian ambassador) to 
Ensign Stubbs on his appointment .'' 

We are bound to read these accounts. It is our pride, our duty 
as Britons. But though one may honour the respect of the aristocracy 
of the land for the sovereign, yet there is no reason why those who 
are not of the aristocracy should be aping their betters : and the 
Dubhn Castle business has, I cannot but think, a very high-life-below- 
stairs look. There is no aristocracy in Dublin. Its magnates are 
tradesmen— Sir Fiat Haustus, Sir Blacker Dosy, Mr. Serjeant Blue- 
bag, or Mr. Counsellor O'Fee. Brass plates are their titles of honour, 
and they hve by their boluses or their briefs. What call have these 
worthy people to be dangling and grinning at lord-lieutenants' levees, 
and playing sham aristocracy before a sham sovereign .? Oh, that old 
humbug of a Castle ! It is the greatest sham of all the shams in 
Ireland. 

Although the season may be said to have begun, for the Courts 
are opened, and the noblesse de la robe have assembled, I do not think 



GENTEEL QUARTERS. 343 

the genteel quarters of the town look much more cheerful. They 
still, for the most part, wear their faded appearance and lean, half-pay 
look. There is the beggar still dawdling here and there. Sounds 
of carriages or footmen do not deaden the clink of the burly pohce- 
man's boot-heels. You may see, possibly, a smutty-faced nursemaid 
leading out her little charges to walk ; or the observer may catch a 
glimpse of Mick the footman lolling at the door, and grinning as he 
talks tasome dubious tradesman. MiCK and John are very different 
characters externally and inwardly ; — profound essays (involving the 
histories of the two countries for a thousand years) might be written 
regarding Mick and John, and the moral and political influences 
which have developed the flunkeys of the two nations. The friend, 
too, with whom Mick talks at the door is a puzzle to a Londoner. I 
have hardly ever entered a Dublin house without meeting with some 
such character on my way in or out. He looks too shabby for a dun, 
and not exactly ragged enough for a beggar — a doubtful, lazy, dirty 
family vassal— a guerilla footman. I think it is he \vho makes a great 
noise, and whispering, and clattering, handing in the dishes to Mick 
from outside of the dining-room door. When an Irishman comes to 
London he brings Erin with him ; and ten to one you will find one of 
these queer retainers about his place. 

London one can only take leave of by degrees : the great town 
melts away into suburbs, which soften, as it were, the parting between 
the Cockney and his darling birthplace. But you pass from some of 
the stately fine Dublin streets straight into the country. After No. 46, 
Eccles Street, for instance, potatoes begin at once. You are on a 
wide green plain, diversified by occasional cabbage-plots, by drying- 
grounds white with chemises, in the midst of which the chartered 
wind is revelling ; and though in the map some fanciful engineer has 
laid down streets and squares, they exist but on paper ; nor, indeed, 
can there be any need of them at present, in a quarter wl^ere houses 
are not wanted so much as people to dwell in the same. 

If the genteel portions of the town look to the full as melancholy 
as they did, the downright poverty ceases, I fear, to make so strong 
an impression as it made four months ago. Going over the same 
ground again, places appear to have quite a different aspect ; and, 
with their strangeness, poverty and misery have lost much of their 
terror. The people, though dirtier and more ragged, seem certainly 
happier than those in London. 

Near to the King's Court, for instance (a noble building, as are 
almost all the public edifices of the city), is a stragghng green suburb, 



344 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK, 

containing numberless little shabby, patched, broken-windowed huts, 
with rickety gardens dotted with rags that have been washed, and chil- 
dren that have not ; and thronged with all sorts of ragged inhabitants. 
Near to the suburb in the town, is a dingy old mysterious district, 
called Stoneybatter, where some houses have been allowed to reach 
an old age, extraordinary in this country of premature ruin, and look 
as if they had been built some six score years since. In these and 
the neighbouring tenements, not so old, but equally ruinous and 
mouldy, there is a sort of vermin swarm of humanity ; dirty faces at 
all the dirty windows ; children on all the broken steps ; smutty 
slipshod women clacking and bustling about, and old men dawdling. 
Well, only paint and prop the tumbling gates and huts in the suburb, 
and fancy the Stoneybatterites clean, and you would have rather a gay 
and agreeable picture of human life — of work-people and their 
families reposing after their labours. They are all happy, and sober, 
and kind-hearted, — they seem kind, and play v»ith the children— the 
young women having a gay, good-natured joke for the passer-by ; the 
old seemingly contented, and buzzing to one another. It is only the 
costume, as it were, that has frightened the stranger, and made him 
fancy that people so ragged must be unhappy. Observation grows 
used to the rags as much as the people do, and my impression of the 
walk through this district, on a sunshiny, clear, autumn evening, is 
that of a fete. I am almost ashamed it should be so. 

Near to Stoneybatter lies a group of huge gloomy edifices— an 
hospital, a penitentiary, a mad-house, and a poor-house. I visited the 
latter of these, the North Dublin Union-house, an enormous establish- 
ment, which accommodates two thousand beggars. Like all the public 
institutions of the country, it seems to be well conducted, and is a 
vast, orderly, and cleanly place, wherein the prisoners are better 
clothed, better fed, and better housed than they can hope to be when 
at liberty. We were taken into all the wards in due order: the 
schools and nursery for the children ; the dining-rooms, day-rooms, 
&c., of the men and women. Each division is so accommodated, as 
also with a large court or ground to walk and exercise in. 

Among the men, there are very few able-bodied ; the most of 
them, the keeper said, having gone out for the harvest-time, or as 
soon as the potatoes came in. If they go out, they cannot return 
before the expiration of a month : the guardians have been obliged to 
establish this prohibition, lest the persons requiring relief should go in 
and out too frequently. The old men were assembled in considerable 
numbers in a long day-room that is comfortable and warm. Some of 



I 



NORTH DUBLIN UNION. 343 

them were picking oakum by way of employment, but most of them 
were past work; all such inmates of the house as are able-bodied 
being occupied upon the premises. Their hall was airy and as clean 
as brush and water could make it : the men equally clean, and their 
grey jackets and Scotch caps stout and warm. Thence we were led, 
with a sort of satisfaction, by the guardian, to the kitchen — a large 
room, at the end of which might be seen certain coppers, emitting, it 
must be owned, a very faint inhospitable smell. It was Fridaj^, and 
rice-milk is the food on that day, each man being served with a pint- 
canful, of which cans a great number stood smoking upon stretchers 
— the platters were laid, each with its portion of salt, in the large 
clean dining-room hard by. " Look at that rice," said the keeper, 
taking up a bit ; " try it, sir, it's delicious." I'm sure I hope it is. 

The old women's room w^as crowded with, I should think, at least 
four hundred old ladies — neat and nice, in white clothes and caps — 
sitting demurely on benches, doing nothing for the most part ; but 
some employed, like the old men, in fiddling with the oakum. 
" There's tobacco here," says the guardian, in a loud voice ; " who's 
smoking tobacco ?" " Fait, and I wish dere was some tabaccy here," 
says one old lady, "and my service to you, Mr. Leary, and I hope one 
of the gentlemen has a snuff-box, and a pinch for a poor old woman." 
But we had no boxes ; and if any person who reads this visit, goes to 
a poor-house or lunatic asylum, let him carry a box, if for that day 
only— a pinch is like Dives's drop of water to those poor limboed 
souls. Some of the poor old creatures began to stand up as we came 
in — I can't say how painful such an honour seemed to me. 

There was a separate room for the able-bodied females ; and the 
place and courts were full of stout, red-cheeked, bouncing women, a 
the old ladies looked respectable, I cannot say the young ones were 
particularly good-looking; there were some Hogarthian faces amongst 
them — sly, leering, and hideous. I fancied I could see only too well 
what these girls had been. Is it charitable or not to hope that such 
bad faces could only belong to bad women ? 

" Here, sir, is the nursery," said the guide, flingrng open the door 
of a long room. There may have been eighty babies in it, with as 
many nurses and mothers. Close to the door sat one with as beautiful 
a face as I almost ever saw : she had at her breast a very sickly and 
puny child, and looked up, as we entered, with a pair of angelical 
eyes, and a face that Mr, Eastlake could paint — a face that had been 
angelical that is; for there was the snow still, as it were, but with the 
footmark on it. I asked her how old she was— she did not know. 



346 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

She could not have been more than fifteen years, the poor child. She 
said she had been a servant — and there was no need of asking any- 
thing more about her story. I saw her grinning at one of her comrades 
as we went out of the room ; her face did not look angelical then. 
Ah, young master or old, young or old villain, who did this ! — have 
you not enough wickedness of your own to answer for, that you must 
take another's sins upon your shoulders ; and be this wretched child's 
sponsor in crime ? . . . . 

But this chapter must be made as short as possible : and so I will 
not say how much prouder Mr. Leary, the keeper, was of his fat pigs 
than of his paupers — how he pointed us out the burial-ground of the 
family of the poor — their coffins were quite visible through the 
niggardly mould ; and the children might peep at their fathers over 
the burial-ground-play-ground- wall — nor how we went to see the Linen 
Hall of Dublin — that huge, useless, lonely, decayed place, in the vast 
windy solitudes of which stands the simpering statue of George IV., 
pointing to some bales of shirting, over which he is supposed to extend 
his august protection. 

The cheers of the rabble hailing the new Lord Mayor were the last 
sounds that I heard in Dublin : and I quitted the kind friends I had 
made there with the sincerest regret. As for forming '• an opinion of 
Ireland," such as is occasionally asked from a traveller on his return 
— that is as difficult an opinion to form as to express ; and the puzzle 
which has perplexed the gravest and wisest, may be confessed by a 
humble writer of light literature, whose aim it only was to look at the 
manners and the scenery of the country, and who does not venture to 
meddle with questions of more serious import. 

To have '' an opinion about Ireland," one must begin by getting at 
the truth ; and where is it to be had in the country .^ Or rather, there 
are two truths, the Catholic truth and the Protestant truth. The two 
parties do not see things with the same eyes. I recollect, for instance, 
a Catholic gentleman telling me that the Primate had forty-three 
thousand five Jmndred a year; a Protestant clergyman gave me, 
chapter and verse, the history of a shameful perjury and malversation 
of money on the part of a Catholic priest ; nor was one tale more true 
than the other. But belief is made a party business; and the 
receiving of the archbishop's income would probably not convince the 
Catholic, any more than the clearest evidence to the contrary altered 
the Protestant's opinion. Ask about an estate: you may be sure 
almost that people will make mis-statements, or volunteer them if not 
asked. Ask a cottager about his rent, or his landlord : you cannot 






FAREWELL TO DUBLIN. 347 

trust him. I shall never forget the glee with which a gentleman in 
Munster told me how he had sent off MM. Tocqueville and Beaumont 
"with such a set of stories." Inghs was seized, as I am told, and 
mystified in the same way. In the midst of all these truths, attested 
with " I give ye my sacred honour and word," which is the stranger to 
select } And how are we to trust philosophers who make theories 
upon such data ? 

Meanwhile it is satisfactory to know, upon testimony so general as 
to be equivalent almost to fact, that, wretched as it is, the country 
is steadily advancing, nor nearly so wretched now as it was a score of 
years since ; and let us hope that the middle class, which this increase 
of prosperity must generate (and of which our laws have hitherto 
forbidden the existence in Ireland, making there a population of 
Protestant aristocracy and Catholic peasantry), will exercise the 
greatest and most beneficial influence over the country. Too inde- 
pendent to be bullied by priest or squire— having their interest in 
quiet, and alike indisposed to servility or to rebellion ; may not as 
much be hoped from the gradual formation of such a class, as from 
any legislative meddling.? It is the want of the middle class that has 
rendered the squire so arrogant, and the clerical or political dema- 
gogue so powerful; and I think Mr. O'Connell himself would say that 
the existence of such a body would do more for the steady acquire- 
ment of orderly freedom, than the occasional outbreak of any crowd, 
influenced by any eloquence from altar or tribune. 



END OF "the IRISH SKETCH BOOK." 



CRITICAL REVIEWS 



CRITICAL REVIEWS. 



GEORGE CRUIKSHANK.'' 

ACCUSATIONS of ingratitude, and just accusations no doubt, 
are made against every inhabitant of this wicked world, and 
the fact is, that a man who is ceaselessly engaged in its trouble and 
turmoil, borne hither and thither upon the -fierce waves of the crowd, 
bustling, shifting, struggling to keep himself somewhat above water — 
fighting for reputation, or more likely for bread, and ceaselessly 
occupied to-day with plans for appeasing the eternal appetite of 
inevitable hunger to-morrow — a man in such straits has hardly time 
to think of anything but himself, and, as in a sinking ship, must make 
his own rush for the boats, and fight, struggle, and trample for safety. 
In the midst of such a combat as this, the " ingenious arts, which 
prevent the ferocity of the manners, and act upon them as an 
emollient" (as the philosophic bard remarks in the Latin Grammar) 
are likely to be jostled to death, and then forgotten. The world will 
allow no such compromises between it and that which does not belong 
to it — no two gods must we serve ; but (as one has seen in some old 
portraits) the horrible glazed eyes of Necessity are always fixed upon 
you ; fly away as you will, black Care sits behind you, and with his 
ceaseless gloomy croaking drowns the voice of all more cheerful com- 
panions. Happy he whose fortune has placed him where there is calm 
and plenty, and who has the wisdom not to give up his quiet in quest 
of visionary gain. 

Here is, no doubt, the reason why a man, after the period of his 
boyhood, or first youth, makes so few friends. Want and ambition 
(new acquaintances which are introduced to him along with his beard) 

* Reprinted from the Westminster Revieiv {ox ^yxxit, 1840. (No. 66.) 



352 CRITICAL REVIEWS. 

thrust away all other society from him. Some old friends remain, it is 
true, but these are become as a habit — a part of your selfishness ; and, 
for new ones, they are as selfish as you are. Neither member of the new 
partnership has the capital of affection and kindly feeling, or can even 
afford the time that is requisite for the establishment of the new firm. 
Damp and chill the shades of the prison-house begin to close round us, 
and that " vision splendid " which has accompanied our steps in our 
journey daily farther from the east, fades away and dies into the light 
of common day. 

And what a common day ! what a foggy, dull, shivering apology 
for light is this kind of muddy twilight through which we are about to 
tramp and flounder for the rest of our existence, wandering farther and 
farther from the beauty and freshness and from the kindly gushing 
springs of clear gladness that made all around us green in our youth ! 
One wanders and gropes in a slough of stock-jobbing, one sinks or 
rises in a storm of politics, and in either case it is as good to fall as to 
rise — to mount a bubble on the crest of the wave, as to sink a stone 
to the bottom. 

The reader who has seen the name affixed to the head of this 
article scarcely expected to be entertained with a declamation upon 
ingratitude, youth, and the vanity of human pursuits, which may seem 
at first sight to have little to do with the subject in hand. But 
(although we reserve the privilege of discoursing upon whatever 
subject shall suit us, and by no means admit the public has any right 
to ask in our sentences for any meaning, or any connection whatever) 
it happens that, in this particular instance, there is an undoubted 
connection. In Susan's case, as recorded by Wordsworth, what 
connection had the corner of Wood Street with a mountain ascending, 
a vision of trees, and a nest by the Dove ? Why should the song of 
a thrush cause bright volumes of vapour to glide through Lothbury, 
and a river to flow on through the vale of Cheapside ? As she stood 
at that corner of Wood Street, a mop and a pail in her hand most 
likely, she heard the bird singing, and straightway began pining and 
yearning for the days of her youth, forgetting the proper business of 
the pail and mop. Even so we are moved by the sight of some of 
Mr. Cruikshank's works— the " Busen fiihlt sich jugendlich erschiittert," 
the " schwankende Gestalten " of youth flit before one again, — Cruik- 
shank's thrush begins to pipe and carol, as in the days of boyhood ; 
hence misty moralities, reflections, and sad and pleasant remembrances 
arise. He is the friend of the young especially. Have we not read 
all the story-books that his wonderful pencil has illustrated ? Did we 






GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 353 

not forego tarts, in order to buy his " Breaking-up," or his " Fashion- 
able Monstrosities" of the year eighteen hundred and something? 
Have we not before us, at this very moment, a print,— one of the 
admirable " Illustrations of Phrenology " — which entire work was 
purchased by a joint-stock company of boys, each drawing lots after- 
wards for the separate prints, and taking his choice in rotation ? The 
writer of this, too, had the honour of drawing the first lot, and seized 
immediately upon " Philoprogenitiveness "—a marvellous print (our 
copy is not at all improved by being coloured, which operation we per- 
formed on it ourselves)— a marvellous print, indeed,— full of ingenuity 
and tine jovial humour. A father, possessor of an enormous nose and 
family, is surrounded by the latter, who are, some of them, embracing 
the former. The composition writhes and twists about like the Kermes 
of Rubens. No less than seven httle men and women in nightcaps, in 
frocks, in bibs, in breeches, are clambering about the head, knees, and 
arms of the man with the nose ; their noses, too, are preternaturally de- 
veloped—the twins in the cradle have noses of the most considerable 
kind. The second daughter, who is watching them; the youngest but 
two, who sits squalling in a certain wicker chair ; the eldest son, who 
is yawning ; the eldest daughter, who is preparing with the gravy of 
two mutton-chops a savoury dish of Yorkshire pudding for eighteen 
persons ; the youths who are examining her operations (one a literary 
gentleman, m a remarkably neat nightcap and pinafore, who has just 
had his finger in the pudding) ; the genius who is at work on the 
slate, and the two honest lads who are hugging the good-humoured 
washerwoman, their mother,— all, all, save this worthy woman, have 
noses of the largest size. Not handsome certainly are they, and yet 
everybody must be charmed with the picture. It is full of grotesque 
beauty. The artist has at the back of his own skull, we are certain, 
a huge bump of philoprogenitiveness. He loves children in his heart ; 
every one of those he has drawn is perfectly happy, and jovial, and 
affectionate, and innocent as possible. He makes them with large 
noses, but he loves them, and you always find something kind in the 
midst of his humour, and the ugliness redeemed by a sly touch of beauty. 
The smiling mother reconciles one with all the hideous family : they 
have all something of the mother in them — something kind, and 
generous, and tender. 

Knight's, in Sweeting's Alley ; Fairburn's, in a court off Ludgate 
Hill ; Hone's, in Fleet Street— bright, enchanted palaces, which 
George Cruikshank used to people with grinning, fantastical imps, and 
merry, harmless sprites, — where are they ? Fairburn's shop knows 



354 CRITICAL REVIEWS. 

him no more ; not only has Knight disappeared from Sweeting's Alley, 
but, as we are given to understand, Sweeting's Alley has disappeared 
from the face of the globe. Slop, the atrocious Castlereagh, the 
sainted Caroline (in a tight pehsse, with feathers in her head), the 
" Dandy of sixty," who used to glance at us from Hone's friendly 
windows— where are they? Mr. Cruikshank may have drawn a 
thousand better things since the days when these were ; but they are 
to us a thousand times more pleasing than anything else he has done. 
How we used to believe in them ! to stray miles out of the way on 
holidays, in order to ponder for an hour before that delightful window 
in Sweeting's Alley ! in walks through Fleet Street, to vanish abruptly 
down Fairburn's passage, and there make one at his charming "gratis" 
exhibition. There used to be a crowd round the window in those days, 
of grinning, good-natured mechanics, who spelt the songs, and spoke 
them out for the benefit of the company, and who received the points 
of humour with a general sympathizing roar. Where are these people 
now ? You never hear any laughing at H.B. ; his pictures are a great 
deal too genteel for that — polite points of wit, which strike one as ex- 
ceedingly clever and pretty, and cause one to smile in a quiet, gentle- 
man-like kind of way. 

There must be no smiling with Cruikshank. A man who does 
not laugh outright is a dullard, and has no heart ; even the old dandy 
of sixty must have laughed at his own wondrous grotesque image, as 
they say Louis Philippe did, who saw all the caricatures that were 
made of himself And there are some of Cruikshank's designs w-hich 
have the blessed faculty of creating laughter as often as you see them. 
As Diggory says in the play, who is bidden by his master not to laugh 
while waiting at table — " Don't tell the story of Grouse in the Gun- 
room, master, or I can't help laughing." Repeat that history ever so 
often, and at the proper moment, honest Diggory is sure to explode. 
Every man, no doubt, who loves Cruikshank has his " Grouse in the 
Gun-room." There is a fellow in the " Points of Humour " who is 
offering to eat up a certain little general, that has made us happy any 
time these sixteen years : his huge mouth is a perpetual well of 
laughter — buckets full of fun can be drawn from it. We have formed 
no such friendships as that boyish one of the man with the mouth. 
But though, in our eyes, Mr. Cruikshank reached his apogee some 
eighteen years since, it must not be imagined that such is really the 
case. Eighteen sets of children have since then learned to love and 
admire him, and may many more of their successors be brought up in 
the same delightful faith. It is not the artist who fails, but the men 



GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 355 

who grow cold— the men, from whom the illusions (why illusions? 
realities) of youth disappear one by one ; who have no leisure to be 
happy, no blessed holidays, but only fresh cares at Midsummer and 
Christmas, being the inevitable seasons which bring us bills instead 
of pleasures. Tom, who comes bounding home from school, has the 
doctor's account in his trunk, and his father goes to sleep at the 
pantomime to which he takes him. Pater mfelix, you too have 
laughed at Clown, and the magic wand of spangled Harlequin ; what 
delightful enchantment did it wave around you, in the golden days 
"when George the Third was king !" But our clown lies in his grave ; 
and our harlequin, Ellar, prince of how many enchanted islands, was 
he not at Bow Street the other day ,"^ in his dirty, tattered, faded motley 
— seized as a law-breaker, for acting at a penny theatre, after having 
well-nigh starved in the streets, where nobody would hsten to his old 
guitar ? No one gave a shilling to bless him : not one of us who owe 
him so much. 

We know not if Mr. Cruikshank will be very well pleased at finding 
his name in such company as that of Clown and Harlequin ; but he, 
like them, is certainly the children's friend. His drawings abound in 
feeling for these little ones, and hideous as in the course of his duty he 
is from time to time compelled to design them, he never sketches one 
without a certain pity for it, and imparting to the figure a certain 
grotesque grace. In happy school-boys he revels ; plum-pudding and 
holidays his needle has engraved over and over again ; there is a 
design in one of the comic almanacs of some young gentlemen who 
are employed in administering to a schoolfellow the correction of the 
pump, which is as graceful and elegant as a drawing of Stothard. Dull 
books about children George Cruikshank makes bright with illus- 
trations — there is one published by the ingenious and opulent Mr. 
Tegg. It is entitled " Mirth and Morality," the mirth being, for the 
most part, on the side of the designer — the morality, unexceptionable 
certainly, the author's capital. Here are then, to these moralities, a 
smihng train of mirths supphed by George Cruikshank. See yonder 
little fellows butterfly-hunting across a common ! Such a light, brisk, 
airy, gentleman-like drawing was never made upon such a theme. 
Who, cries the author — 

" Who has not chased the butterfly, 

And crushed its slender legs and wings, 
And heaved a moralizing sigh : 

Alas ! how frail are human things ! " 

^ This was written in 1840. 
A A 2 



356 CRITICAL REVIEWS. 

A very unexceptionable morality truly ; but it would have puzzled 
another than George Cruikshank to make mirth out of it as he has 
done. Away, surely not on the wings of these verses, Cruikshank's 
imagination begins to soar ; and he makes us three darling little men 
on a green common, backed by old farm-houses, somewhere about 
May. A great mixture of blue and clouds in the air, a strong fresh 
breeze stirring, Tom's jacket flapping in the same, in order to bring 
down the insect queen or king of spring that is fluttering above him, 
— he renders all this with a few strokes on a little block of wood not 
two inches square, upon which one may gaze for hours, so merry and 
life-like a scene does it present. What a charming creative power is 
this, what a privilege — to be a god, and create little worlds upon 
paper, and whole generations of smihng, jovial men, women, and 
children half inch high, whose portraits are carried abroad, and have 
the faculty of making us monsters of six feet curious and happy in our 
turn. Now, who would imagine that an artist could make anything of 
such a subject as this ? The writer begins by stating, — 

" I love to go back to the days of my youth, 
And to reckon my joys to the letter, 
And to count o'er the friends that I have in the world, 
Ay^ and these who are gone to a better y 

This brings him to the consideration of his uncle. " Of all the men 
I have ever known," says he, " my uncle united the greatest degree 
of cheerfulness with the sobriety of manhood. Though a man when 
I was a boy, he was yet one of the most agreeable companions I ever 
possessed. ... He embarked for America, and nearly twenty years 
passed by before he came back again ; . . . but oh, how altered ! — he 
was in every sense of the word an old man, his body and mind were 
enfeebled, and second childishness had come upon him. How often 
have I bent over him, vainly endeavouring to recall to his memory 
the scenes we had shared together : and how frequently, with an 
aching heart, have I gazed on his vacant and lustreless eye, while he 
has amused himself in clapping his hands and singing with a quavering 
voice a verse of a psalm." Alas ! such are the consequences of long 
residences in America, and of old age even in uncles ! Well, the 
point of this morality is, that the uncle one day in the morning of life 
vowed that he would catch his two nephews and tie them together, 
ay, and actually did so, for all the efforts the rogues made to run away 
from him ; but he was so fatigued that he declared he never would 
make the attempt again, whereupon the nephew remarks, — *^ Often 



GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 357 

since then, vvnen engaged in enterprises beyond my strength, have I 
called to mind the determination of my uncle." 

Does it not seem impossible to make a picture out of this ? And 
yet George Cruikshank has produced a charming design, in which the 
uncles and nephews are so prettily portrayed that one is reconciled to 
their existence, with all their moralities. Many more' of the mirths in 
this little book are excellent, especially a great figure of a parson 
entering church on horseback, — an enormous parson truly, calm, un- 
conscious, unwieldy. As Zeuxis had a bevy of virgins in order to 
make his famous picture — his express virgin — a clerical host must 
have passed under Cruikshank's eyes before he sketched this little, 
enormous parson of parsons. 

Being on the subject of children's books, how shall we enough 
praise the delightful German nursery-tales, and Cruikshank's illustra- 
tions of them ? We coupled his name with pantomime awhile since, 
and sure never pantomimes were more charming than these. Of all 
the artists that ever drew, from Michael Angelo upwards and down- 
wards, Cruikshank was the man to illustrate these tales, and give them 
just the proper admixture of the grotesque, the wonderful, and the 
graceful. May all Mother Bunch's collection be similarly indebted 
to him ; may " Jack the Giant Killer," may " Tom Thumb," may 
" Puss in Boots," be one day revivified by his pencil. Is not 
Whittington sitting yet on Highgate Hill, and poor Cinderella (in 
that sweetest of all fairy stories) still pining in her lonely chimney 
nook ? A man who has a true affection for these delightful companions 
of his youth, is bound to be grateful to them if he can, and we pray 
Mr. Cruikshank to remember them. 

It is folly to say that this or that kind of humour is too good for 
the public, that only a chosen few can relish it. The best humour 
that we know of has been as eagerly received by the public as by the 
most delicate connoisseur. There is hardly a man in England who can 
read but will laugh at Falstaff and the humour of "Joseph Andrews" ; 
and honest Mr. Pickwick's story can be felt and loved by any person 
above the age of six. Some may have a keener enjoyment of it than 
others, but all the world can be merry over it, and is always ready to 
welcome it. The best criterion of good humour is success, and what 
a share of this has Mr. Cruikshank had ! how many millions of 
mortals has he made happy ! We have heard very profound persons 
talk philosophically of the marvellous and mysterious manner in 
which he has suited himself to the i\m.^—fait vib?'er la fibj-e populaire 
(as Napoleon boasted of himself), supplied a peculiar want felt at a 



358 CRITICAL REVIEWS, 

peculiar period, the simple secret of which is, as v/e take it^ that he, 
living amongst the public, has with them a general wide-hearted 
sympathy, that he laughs at what they laugh at, that he has a kindly 
spirit of enjoyment, with not a morsel of mysticism in his composition \. 
that he pities and loves the poor, and jokes at the follies of the great, 
and that he addresses all in a perfectly sincere and manly way. To 
be greatly successful as a professional humourist, as in any other 
calHng, a man must be quite honest, and show that his heart is in his 
work. A bad preacher will get admiration and a hearing with this 
point in his favour, where a man of three times his acquirements will 
only find indifference and coldness. Is any man more remarkable 
than our artist for telling the truth after his own manner.? Hogarth's 
honesty of purpose was as conspicuous in an earlier time, and we 
fancy that Gilray would have been far more successful and more 
powerful but for that unhappy bribe, which turned the whole course 
of his humour into an unnatural channel. Cruikshank would not for 
any bribe say what he did not think, or lend his aid to sneer down 
anything meritorious, or to praise any thing or person that deserved 
censure. When he levelled his wit against the Regent, and did his 
very prettiest for the Princess, he most certainly believed, along with 
the great body of the people whom he represents, that the Princess 
was the most spotless, pure-mannered darling of a princess that ever 
married a heartless debauchee of a Prince Royal. Did not milhons 
believe with him, and noble and learned lords take their oaths to her 
Royal Highness's innocence? Cruikshank would not stand by and 
see a woman ill-used, and so struck in for her rescue, he and the people 
belabouring with all their might the party who were making the attack, 
and determining, from pure sympathy and indignation, that the woman 
must be innocent because her husband treated her so foully. 

To be sure we have never heard so much from Mr. Cruikshank's 
own lips, but any man who will examine these odd drawings, which 
first made him famous, will see what an honest, hearty hatred the 
champion of woman has for all who abuse her, and will admire the 
energy with which he flings his wood-blocks at all who side against 
her. Canning, Castlereagh, Bexley, Sidmouth, he is at them, one and 
all ; and as for the Prince, up to what a whipping-post of ridicule did 
he tie that unfortunate old man ! And do not let squeamish Tories 
cry out about disloyalty ; if the crown does wrong, the crown must 
be corrected by the nation, out of respect, of course, for the crown. 
In those days, and by those people who so bitterly attacked the son, 
no word was ever breathed against the father, simply because he was 
a good husband, and a sober, thrifty, pious, orderly man. 



GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 359 

This attack upon the Prince Regent we beHeve to have been Mr. 
Cruikshank's only effort as a party poHtician. Some early manifestoes 
against Napoleon we find, it is true, done in the regular John Bull 
style, with the Gilray model for the little upstart Corsican : but as 
soon as the Emperor had yielded to stern fortune our artist's heart 
relented (as Beranger's did on the other side of the water), and many 
of our readers will doubtless recollect a fine drawing of " Louis XVIII. 
trying on Napoleon's boots," which did not certainly fit the gouty 
son of Saint Louis. Such satirical hits as these, however, must not be 
considered as political, or as anything more than the expression of the^ 
artist's national British idea of Frenchmen. 

It must be confessed that for that great nation Mr. Cruikshank 
entertains a considerable contempt. Let the reader examine the " Life 
in Paris," or the five hundred designs in which Frenchmen are intro- 
duced, and he will find them almost invariably thin, with ludicrous 
spindle-shanks, pigtails, outstretched hands, shrugging shoulders, and 
queer hair and mustachios. He has the British idea of a French, 
man ; and if he does not believe that the inhabitants of France are 
for the most part dancing-masters and barbers, yet takes care to depict 
such in preference, and would not speak too well of them. It is 
curious how these traditions endure. In France, at the present 
moment, the Englishman on the stage is the caricatured Englishman 
at the time of the war, with a shock red head, a long white coat, and 
invariable gaiters. Those who wish to study this subject should 
peruse Monsieur Paul de Kock's histories of "Lord Bouhngrog" 
and " Lady Crockmilove." On the other hand, the old emigre has 
taken his station amongst us, and we doubt if a good British gallery 
would understand that such and such a character was a Frenchman 
unless he appeared in the ancient traditional costume. 

The curious book, called " Life in Paris," published in 1822, contains 
a number of the artist's plates in the aquatint style ; and though we 
believe he had never been in that capital, the designs have a great 
deal of life in them, and pass muster very well. A villanous race of 
shoulder-shrugging mortals are his Frenchmen indeed. And the heroes 
of the tale, a certam Mr. Dick Wildfire, Squire Jenkins, and Captain 
O'Shuffleton, are made to show the true British superiority on every 
occasion when Britons and French are brought together. This book 
was one among the many that the designer's genius has caused to be 
popular ; the plates are not carefully executed, but, being coloured, 
have a pleasant, lively look. The same style was adopted in the once 
famous book called " Tom and Jerry, or Life in London," which must 



36o CRITICAL REVIEWS, 

have a word of notice here, for, although by no means Mr. Cruik- 
shank's best work, his reputation was extraordinarily raised by it. 
Tom and Jerry were as popular twenty years since as Mr. Pickwick 
and Sam Weller now are ; and often have we wished, while reading 
the biographies of the latter celebrated personages, that they had 
been described as well by Mr. Cruikshank's pencil as by Mr. Dickens's 
pen. 

As for Tom and Jerry, to show the mutability of human affairs 
and the evanescent nature of reputation, we have been to the British 
Museum and no less than five circulating libraries in quest of the 
book, and " Life in London," alas, is not to be found at any one of 
them. We can only, therefore, speak of the work from recollection, 
but have still a very clear remembrance of the leather-gaiters of Jerry 
Hawthorn, the green spectacles of Logic, and the hooked nose of 
Corinthian Tom. They were the school-boy's delight ; and in the 
days when the work appeared we firmly believed the three heroes 
above named to be types of the most elegant, fashionable young fellows 
the town afforded, and thought their occupations and amusements 
were those of all high-bred English gentlemen. Tom knocking down 
the watchman at Temple Bar ; Tom and Jerry dancing at Almack's ; 
or flirting in the saloon at the theatre ; at the night-houses, after the 
play ; at Tom Cribb's, examining the silver cup then in the possession 
of that champion ; at the chambers of Bob Logic, who, seated at a 
cabinet piano, plays a waltz to which Corinthian Tom and Kate are 
dancing ; ambling gallantly in Rotten Row ; or examining the poor 
fellow at Newgate who was having his chains knocked off before 
hanging ; all these scenes remain indelibly engraved upon the mind, 
and so far we are independent of all the circulating libraries in 
London. 

As to the literary contents of the book, they have passed sheer 
away. It was, most likely, not particularly refined ; nay, the chances 
are that it was absolutely vulgar. But it must have had some merit 
of its own, that is clear ; it must have given striking descriptions of 
life in some part or other of London, for all London read it, and went 
to see it in its dramatic shape. The artist, it is said, wished to close 
the career of the three heroes by bringing them all to ruin, but the 
writer, or publishers, would not allow any such melancholy subjects 
to dash the merriment of the public, and we believe Tom, Jerry, and 
Logic, were married off at the end of the tale, as if they had been the 
most moral personages in the world. There is some goodness in this 
pity, which authors and the public are disposed to show towards 



GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 361 

certain agreeable, disreputable characters of romance. Who would 
mar the prospects of honest Roderick Random, or Charles Surface, or 
Tom Jones ? only a very stern moralist indeed. And in regard of 
Jerry Hawthorn and that hero without a surname, Corinthian Tom, 
Mr. Cruikshank, we make little doubt, was glad in his heart that he 
was not allowed to have his own way. 

Soon after the " Tom and Jerry " and the " Life in Paris," Mr. 
Cruikshank produced a much more elaborate set of prints, in a work 
which was called '• Points of Humour." These " Points " were selected 
from various comic works, and did not, we believe, extend beyond 
a couple of numbers, containing about a score of copper-plates. 
The collector of humourous designs cannot fail to have them in his 
portfolio, for they contain some of the very best efforts of Mr. Cruik- 
shank's genius, and though not quite so highly laboured as some ot 
his later productions, are none the worse, in our opinion, for their 
comparative want of finish. All the effects are perfectly given, and 
the expression is as good as it could be in the most delicate engraving 
upon steel. The artist's style, too, was then completely formed ; and, 
for our parts, we should say that we preferred his manner of 1825 to 
any other which he has adopted since. The first picture, which is 
called " The Point of Honour/' illustrates the old story of the officer 
who, on being accused of cowardice for refusing to fight a duel, came 
among his brother officers and flung a lighted grenade down upon the 
floor, before which his comrades fled ignominiously. This design is 
capital, and the outward rush of heroes, walking, trampling, twisting, 
scuffling at the door, is in the best style of the grotesque. You see 
but the back of most of these gentlemen ; into which, nevertheless, the 
artist has managed to throw an expression of ludicrous agony that one 
could scarcely have expected to find in such a part of the human 
figure. The next plate is not less good. It represents a couple who, 
having been found one night tipsy, and lying in the same gutter, were, 
by a charitable though misguided gentleman, supposed to be man and 
wife, and put comfonably to bed together. The morning came ; fancy 
the surprise of this interesting pair when they awoke and discovered 
their situation. Fancy the manner, too, in which Cruikshank has 
depicted them, to which words cannot do justice. It is needless to 
state that this fortuitous and temporary union was followed by one 
more lasting and sentimental, and that these two worthy persons were 
married, and lived happily ever after. 

We should like to go through every one of these prints. There is 
the jolly miller, who, returning home at night, calls upon his wife to 



362 CRITICAL REVIEWS. 

get him a supper, and falls to upon rashers of bacon and ale. How 
he gormandizes, that jolly miller ! rasher after rasher, how they pass 
away frizzing and smoking from the gridiron down that immense 
grinning gulf of a mouth. Poor wife ! how she pines and frets, at that 
untimely hour of midnight to be obliged to fry, fry, fry perpetually, 
and minister to the monster's appetite. And yonder in the clock : 
what agonized face is that we see ? By heavens, it is the squire of the 
parish. What business has he there ? Let us not ask. Suffice it to 

say, that he has, in the hurry of the moment, left upstairs his br ; 

his — psha ! a part of his dress, in short, with a number of bank-notes 
in the pockets. Look in the next page, and you will see the ferocious 
bacon-devouring ruffian of a miller is actually causing this garment to 
be carried through the village and cried by the town-crier. And we 
blush to be obliged to say that the demoralized miller never offered 
to return the bank-notes, although he was so mighty scrupulous in 
endeavouring to find an owner for the corduroy portfolio in which he 
had found them. 

Passing from this painful subject, we come, we regret to state, to 
a series of prints representing personages not a whit more moral. 
Burns's famous " Jolly Beggars " have all had their portraits drawn 
by Cruikshank. There is the lovely "hempen widow," quite as 
interesting and romantic as the famous Mrs. Sheppard, who has at 
the lamented demise of her husband adopted the very same conso- 
lation. 

' ' My curse upon them every one, 
They've hanged my braw John Highlandman ; 
* * * * 

And now a widow, I must mourn 
Departed joys that ne'er return ; 
No comfort but a hearty can 
When I think on John Highlandman." 

Sweet "raucle carlin," she has none of the sentimentality of the 
English highwayman's lady ; but being wooed by a tinker and 

" A pigmy scraper wi' his fiddle, 
Wha us'd at trysts and fairs to driddle," 

prefers the practical to the merely musical man. The tinker smgs 
with a noble candour, worthy of a fellow of his strength of body and 
station in life — 

" My bonnie lass, I work in brass, 
A tinkler is my station ; 






GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 363 

I've travell'd round all Christian ground 

In this my occupation. 
I've ta'en the gold, I've been enroU'd 

In many a noble squadron ; 
But vain they search 'd, when off I march'd 

To go an' clout the caudron." 

It was his ruling passion. What was military glory to him, forsooth ? 
He had the greatest contempt for it, and loved freedom and his copper 
kettle a thousand times better— a kind of hardware Diogenes. Of 
fiddling he has no better opinion. The picture represents the " sturdy 
caird " taking " poor gut-scraper " by the beard, — drawing his " roosty 
rapier," and swearing to " speet him like a pliver " unless he would 
relinquish the bonnie lassie for ever — 

" \Vi' ghastly e'e, poor Tweedle-dee 
Upon his hunkers bended, 
An' pray'd for grace, wi' ruefu' face, 
An' sae the quarrel ended." 

Hark how the tinker apostrophizes the violinist, stating to the widow 
at the same time the advantages which she might expect from an 
alliance with himself : — 

" Despise that shrimp, that wither'd imp, 

Wi' a' his noise and cap'rin' ; 
And take a share with those that bear 

The budget and the apron ! 
And by that stowp, my faith an' houp, 

An' by that dear Kilbaigie ! 
If e'er ye want, or meet wi' scant, 

May I ne'er weet my craigie." 

Cruikshank's caird is a noble creature ; his face and figure show 
him to be fully capable of doing and saying all that is above written 
of him. 

In the second part, the old tale of " The Three Hunchbacked 
Fiddlers" is illustrated with equal felicity. The famous classical 
dinners and duel in " Peregrine Pickle " are also excellent in their 
way ; and the connoisseur of prints and etchings may see in the latter 
plate, and in another in this volume, how great the artist's mechanical 
skill is as an etcher. The distant view of the city in the duel, and of 
a market-place in " The Quack Doctor," are delightful specimens of 
the artist's skill in depicting buildings and backgrounds. They are 



364 CRITICAL REVIEWS. 

touched with a grace, truth, and dexterity of workmanship that leave 
nothing to desire. We have before mentioned the man with the 
mouth, and should be glad to give a little vignette emblematical of 
gout and indigestion, in which the artist has shown all the fancy of 
Callot. Little demons, with long saws for noses, are making dreadful 
incisions into the toes of the unhappy sufferer ; some are bringing 
pans of hot coals to keep the wounded member warm ; a huge, solemn 
nightmare sits on the invalid's chest, staring solemnly into his eyes ; a 
monster, with a pair of drumsticks, is banging a devil's tattoo on his 
forehead ; and a pair of imps are nailing great tenpenny nails mto his 
hands to make his happiness complete. 

But, though not able to seize upon all we wish, we have been able 
to provide a small Cruikshank Gallery for the reader's amusement, and 
must hasten to show off our wares. Like the worthy who figures 
below, there is such a choice of pleasures here, that we are puzzled 
with which to begin. 



I 




The Cruikshank collector will recognize this old friend as coming 
from the late Mr. Clark's excellent work, "Three Courses and a 
Dessert." The work was pubhshed at a time when the rage for comic 
stories was not so great as it since has been, and Messrs. Clark and 
Cruikshank only sold their hundreds where Messrs. Dickens and Phiz 
dispose of their thousands. But if our recommendation can in any 
way influence the reader, we would enjoin him to have a copy of the 
'' Three Courses," that contains some of the best designs of our artist. 



GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 



365 



and some of the most amusing tales in our language. The inven- 
tion of the pictures, for which Mr. Clark takes credit to himself, says 
a great deal for his wit and fancy. Can we, for instance, praise too 
highly the man who invented this wonderful oyster ? 




Examine him well ; his beard, his pearl, his little round stomach 
and his sweet smile. ^^ _^^ /:^^g4^._^ - 

Only oysters know how ' " -- ^''- ^ " "' 

to smile in this way ; 
cool, gentle, waggish, 
and yet inexpressibly 
innocent and winning. 
Dando himself must 
have allowed such an 
artless native to go free, 
and consigned him to 
the glassy, cool, trans- 
lucent wave again. 

In writing upon 
such subjects as these 
with which we have 
been furnished, it can 
hardly be expected 
that we should follow 
any fixed plan and 
order — we must there- 
fore take such advan- 
tage as we may, and seize upon our subject when and wherever we 
can lay hold of him. 




366 CRITICAL REVIEWS. 

For Jews, sailors, Irishmen, Hessian boots, little boys, beadles, 
policemen, tall life-guardsmen, charity children, pumps, dustmen, very 
short pantaloons, dandies in spectacles, and ladies with aquiline noses, 
remarkably taper waists, and wonderfully long ringlets, Mr. Cruik- 
shank has a special predilection. The tribe of Israelites he has 
studied with amazing gusto ; witness the Jew in Mr. Ainsworth's 
" Jack Sheppard," and the immortal Fagin of " Oliver Twist." 
Whereabouts lies the comic vis in these persons and things ? Why 
should a beadle be comic, and his opposite a charity boy ? Why- 
should a tall life-guardsman have something in him essentially absurd ? 
Wliy are short breeches more ridiculous than long ? What is there 
particularly jocose about a pump, and wherefore does a long nose 
always provoke the beholder to laughter ? These points may be 
metaphysically elucidated by those who list. It is probable that Mr. 
Cruikshank could not give an accurate definition of that which is 
ridiculous in these objects, but' his instinct has told him that fun lurks 
in them, and cold must be the heart that can pass by the pantaloons 
of his charity boys, the Hessian boots of his dandies, and the fan-tail 
hats of his dustmen, without respectful wonder. 

He has made a complete little gallery of dustmen. There is, in the 
first place, the professional dustman, who, having in the enthusiastic 
exercise of his delightful trade, laid hands upon property not strictly 
his own, is pursued, we presume, by the right owner, from whom he 
flies as fast as his crooked shanks will carry him. 

What a curious picture it is — the horrid rickety houses in some 
dingy suburb of London, the grinning cobbler, the smothered butcher, 
the very trees which are covered with dust— it is fine to look at the 
different expressions of the two interesting fugitives. The fiery 
charioteer who belabours the poor donkey has still a glance for his 
brother on foot, on whom punishment is about to descend. And not 
a little curious is it to think of the creative power of the man who has 
arranged this little tale of low life. How logically it is conducted, 
how cleverly each one of the accessories is made to contribute to the 
effect of the whole. What a deal of thought and humour has the 
artist expended on this little block of wood ; a large picture might 
have been painted out of the very same materials, which Mr. Cruik- 
shank, out of his wondrous fund of merriment and observation, can 
afford to throw away upon a drawing not two inches long. From 
the practical dustmen we pass to those purely poetical. There are 
three of them who rise on clouds of their own raising, the very genii 
of the sack and shovel. 



GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 367 

Is there no one to write a sonnet to these ? — and yet a whole poem 
was written about Peter Bell the Waggoner, a character by no means 
so poetic. 

And lastly, we have the dustman in love : the honest fellow having 
seen a young beauty stepping out of a gin-shop on a Sunday morning, 
is pressing eagerly his suit. 

Gin has furnished many subjects to Mr. Cruikshank, who labours 
in his own sound and hearty way to teach his countrymen the dangers 
of that drink. In the "Sketch-Book" is a plate upon the subject, 
remarkable for fancy and beauty of design ; it is called the " Gin 
Juggernaut," and represents a hideous moving palace, with a reeking 
still at the roof and vast gin-barrels for wheels, under which unhappy 
millions are crushed to death. An immense black cloud of desolation 
covers over the country through which the gin monster has passed, 
dimly looming through the darkness whereof you see an agreeable 
prospect of gibbets with men dangling, burnt houses, &:c. The vast 
cloud comes sweeping on in the wake of this horrible body-crusher ; 
and you see, by way of contrast, a distant, smiling, sunshiny tract of 
old Enghsh country, where gin as yet is not known. The allegory is 
as good, as earnest, and as fanciful as one of John Bunyan's, and we 
have often fancied there was a similarity between the men. 

The reader will examine the work called " My Sketch-Book " with 
not a little amusement, and may gather from it, as we fancy, a good 
deal of information regarding the character of the individual man, 
George Cruikshank : what points strike his eye as a painter ; what 
move his anger or admiration as a moralist ; what classes he seems 
most especially disposed to observe, and what to ridicule. There are 
quacks of all kinds, to whom he has a mortal hatred ; quack dandies, 
who assume under his pencil, perhaps in his eye, the most grotesque 
appearance possible— their hats grow larger, their legs infinitely more 
crooked and lean ; the tassels of their canes swell out to a most pre- 
posterous size ; the tails of their coats dwindle away, and finish where 
coat-tails generally begin. Let us lay a wager that Cruikshank, a man 
of the people if ever there was one, heartily hates and despises these 
supercilious, swaggering young gentlemen ; and his contempt is not a 
whit the less laudable because there may be tant soit peu of prejudice 
in it. It is right and wholesome to scorn dandies, as Nelson said it 
was to hate Frenchmen ; in which sentiment (as we have before said) 
George Cruikshank undoubtedly shares. In the " Sunday in London,"* 

♦ The following lines— ever fresh— by the author of *' Headlong Hall," 



368 



CRITICAL REVIEWS. 



Monsieur the Chef is instructing a kitchen-maid how to compound 
some rascally French kickshaw or the other— a pretty scoundrel truly ! 
with what an air he wears that nightcap of his, and shrugs his lank 
shoulders, and chatters, and ogles, and grins : they are all the same, 
these moun seers ; there are other Xwoi^ows—morbleul one is putting 
his dirty fingers into the saucepan ; there are frogs cooking in it, no 
doubt ; and just over some other dish of abomination, another dirty 
rascal is taking snuff ! Never mind, the sauce won't be hurt by a few 
ingredients more or less. Three such fellows as these are not worth 
one Enghshman, that's clear. There is one in the very midst of them, 
the great burly fellow with the beef : he could beat all three in five 
minutes. We cannot be certain that such was the process going on in 
Mr. Cruikshank's mind when he made the design ; but some feelings 
of the sort were no doubt entertained by him. 

Against dandy footmen he is particularly severe. He hates idlers, 
pretenders, boasters, and punishes these fellows as best he may. Who 
does not recollect the famous picture, "What is Taxes, Thomas?" 
What is taxes indeed ! well may that vast, over-fed, lounging flunkey 
ask the question of his associate Thomas : and yet not well, for all that 
Thomas says in reply is, " / doii't knoivP " O beati plushicolcE^^ what 

published years ago in the Globe and Traveller^ are an excellent comment on 
several of the cuts from the " Sunday in London : "— 



The poor man's sins are glaring ; 
In the face of ghostly warning 

He is caught in the fact 

Of an overt act, 
Buying greens on Sunday morning. 

II. 
The rich man's sins are hidden 
In the pomp of wealth and station, 

And escape the sight 

Of the children of light, 
Who are wise in their generation. 



The rich man has a kitchen, 
And cooks to dress his dinner ; 
The poor who would roast, 
To the baker's must post, 
And thus becomes a sinner. 



' The rich man's painted windows 
Hide the concerts of the quality ; 
The poor can but share 
A crack' d fiddle in the air, 
Which offends all sound morality. 

V. 
The rich man has a cellar, 
And a ready butler by him ; 

The poor must steer 

For his pint of beer [spy him. 
Where the saint can't choose but 

VI. 

The rich man is invisible 

In the crowd of his gay society ; 

But the poor man's delight 

Is a sore in the sight 
And a stench in the nose of piety." 



GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 369 

a charming state of ignorance is yours ! In the " Sketch-Book" many 
footmen make their appearance : one is a huge fat Hercules of a 
Portman Square porter, who calmly surveys another poor fellow, a 
porter likewise, but out of livery, who comes staggering forward with 
a box that Hercules might lift with his little finger. Will Hercules do 
so? not he. The giant can carry nothing heavier than a cocked-hat 
note on a silver tray, and his labours are to walk from his sentry-box 
to the door, and from the door back to his sentry-box, and to read the 
Sunday paper, and to poke the hall fire twice or thrice, and to make 
five meals a day. Such a fellow does Cruikshank hate and scorn 
worse even than a Frenchman. 

The man's master, too, comes in for no small share of our artist's 
wrath. There is a company of them at church, who humbly designate 
themselves "miserable sinners!" Miserable sinners indeed! Oh, 
what floods of turtle-soup, what tons of turbot and lobster-sauce must 
have been sacrificed to make those sinners properly miserable. My 
lady with the ermine tippet and draggling feather, can we not see that 
she Hves in Portland Place, and is the wife of an East India Director? 
She has been to the Opera over-night (indeed her husband, on her 
right, with his fat hand dangling over the pew-door, is at this minute 
thinking of Mademoiselle Leocadie, whom he saw behind the scenes) 
— she has been at the Opera over-night, which with a trifle of supper 
afterwards — a white-and-brown soup, a lobster-salad, some woodcocks, 
and a little champagne— sent her to bed quite comfortable. At half- 
past eight her maid brings her chocolate in bed, at ten she has fresh 
eggs and muffins, with, perhaps, a half-hundred of prawns for break- 
fast, and so can get over the day and the sermon till lunch-time pretty 
well. What an odour of musk and bergamot exhales from the pew ! — 
how it is wadded, and stuffed, and spangled over with brass nails ! 
\\ hat hassocks are there for those who are not too fat to kneel ! what 
a flustering and flapping of gilt prayer-books ; and what a pious 
whirring of bible leaves one hears all over the church, as the doctor 
blandly gives out the text ! To be miserable at this rate you must, at 
the very least, have four thousand a year : and many persons are there 
so enamoured of grief and sin, that they would willingly take the risk 
of the misery to have a life-interest in the consols that accompany it, 
quite careless about consequences, and sceptical as to the notion that 
a day is at hand when you must iviMiiS. yotir share oftJie bargain. 

Our artist loves to joke at a soldier; in whose livery there appears 
to him to be something almost as ridiculous as in the uniform of 
the gentleman of the shoulder-knot. Tall life-guardsmen and fierce 

B 13 



370 



CRITICAL REVIEWS. 



grenadiers figure in many of his designs, and almost always in a 
ridiculous way. Here again we have the honest popular English 
feeling which jeers at pomp or pretension of all kinds, and is especially 
jealous of all display of military authority. "Raw Recruit," ditto 
" dressed," ditto " served up," as we see them in the " Sketch-Book," are 
so many satires upon the army : Hodge with his ribbons flaunting in 
his hat, or with red coat and musket, drilled stiff and pompous, or at 
last, minus leg and arm, tottering about on crutches, does not fill our 
Znglish artist with the enthusiasm that follows the soldier in every 
other part of Europe. Jeanjean, the conscript in France, is laughed 
at to be sure, but then it is because he is a bad soldier: when he 
comes to have a huge pair of mustachios and the c7'oix-d^ho7t?ieji7- to 
briller on his poitri7ie cicairise'e, Jeanjean becomes a member of a class 
that is more respected than any other in the French nation. The 
veteran soldier inspires our people with no such awe — we hold that 
democratic weapon the fist in much more honour than the sabre and 
bayonet, and laugh at a man tricked out in scarlet and pipe-clay. 

Look at this regiment of heroes " marching to divine service," to 
the tune of the " British Grenadiers." 



t 




There they march in state, and a pretty contempt our artist shows 
for all their gimcracks and trumpery. He has drawn a perfectly 
English scene— the little blackguard boys are playing pranks round 



GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 



371 



about the men, and shouting, " Heads up, soldier," " Eyes right, 
lobster," as little British urchins will do. Did one ever hear the like 
sentiments expressed in France? Shade of Napoleon, we insult you 
by asking the question. In England, however, see how different the 
case is : and, designedly or undesignedly, the artist has opened to us a 
piece of his mind. Look in the crowd — the only person who admires 
the soldiers is the poor idiot, whose pocket a rogue is picking. There 
is another picture, in which the sentiment is much the same, only, as 
in the former drawing we see Englishmen laughing at the troops of 
the line, here are Irishmen giggling at the militia. 

We have said that our artist has a great love for the drolleries of 
the Green Island. Would any one doubt what was the country of the 
merry fellows depicted in the following group? 




" Place me amid O'Rourkes, O'Tooles, 
The ragged royal race of Tara ; 
Or place me where Dick IMartin rules 
The pathless wilds of Connemara." 

We know not if Mr. Cruikshank has ever had any such good luck as 
to see the Irish in Ireland itself, but he certainly has obtained a 
knowledge of their looks, as if the country had been all his life familiar 
to him. Gould Mr. O'Gonnell himself desire anything more national 
than the scene of a drunken row, or could Father Mathew have a 
better text to preach upon ? There is not a broken nose in the room 
that is not thoroughly Irish. 

We have then a couple of compositions treated in a graver 
manner, as characteristic too as the other. We call attention to the 

15 B 2 



372 



CRITICAL REVIEWS. 



comical look of poor Teague, who has been pursued and beaten by 
the witch's stick, in order to point out also the singular neatness of the 
workmanship, and the pretty, fanciful little glimpse of landscape that 
the artist has introduced in the background. 




Mr. Cruikshank has a fine eye for such homely landscapes, and 
renders them with great delicacy and taste. Old villages, farm-yards, 
groups of stacks, queer chimneys, churches, gable-ended cottages, 
Elizabethan mansion-houses, and other old English scenes, he depicts 
with evident enthusiasm. 

Famous books in their day were Cruikshank's "John Gilpin" and 
<^Epping Hunt;" for though our artist does not draw horses very 
scientifically,— to use a phrase of the atelier, — he feels them very 
keenly ; and his queer animals, after one is used to them, answer quite 
as well as better. Neither is he very happy in trees, and such rustical 
produce ; or rather, we should say, he is very original, his trees being 
decidedly of his own make and composition, not imitated from any 
master. 

But what then ? Can a man be supposed to imitate everything ? 
We know what the noblest study of mankind is, and to this Mr. 
Cruikshank has confined himself That postilion with the people in 
the broken-down chaise roaring after him is as deaf as the post by 
which he passes. Suppose all the accessories were away, could not 
one swear that the man was stone-deaf, beyond the reach of trumpet 1 
What is the peculiar character in a deaf man's physiognomy .?— can 
any person define it satisfactorily in words ?— not in pages ; and Mr. 



GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 373 

Cruikshank has expressed it on a piece of paper not so big as the tenth 
part of your thumb-nail. The horses of John Gilpin are much more 
of the equestrian order ; and as here the artist has only his favourite 
suburban buildings to draw, not a word is to be said against his design. 
The inn and old buildings are charmingly designed, and nothing can 
be more prettily or playfully touched. 

" At Edmonton his loving wife 
From the balcony spied 
Her tender husband, wond'ring much 
To see how he did ride. 

** ' Stop, stop, John Gilpin ! Here's the house ! ' 
They all at once did cry ; 
' The dinner waits, and we are tired — ' 
Said Gilpin — ' So am I ! ' 

*' Six gentlemen upon the road 
Thus seeing Gilpin fly. 
With post-boy scamp'ring in the rear. 
They raised the hue and cry : — 



(( ( 



Stop thief ! stop thief ! — a highwayman ! ' 

Not one of them was mute ; 
And all and each that passed that way 

Did join in the pursuit. 

' ' And now the turnpike gates again 
Flew open in short space ; 
The toll-men thinking, as before, 
That Gilpin rode a race." 

The rush, and shouting, and clatter are excellently depicted by thr 
artist ; and we, who have been scoffing at his manner of designing 
animals, must here make a special exception in favour of the hens 
and chickens ; each has a different action, and is curiously natural. 

Happy are children of all ages who have such a ballad and such 
pictures as this in store for them ! It is a comfort to think that wood- 
cuts never wear out, and that the book still may be had for a shilling, 
for those who can command that sum of money. 

In the "Epping Hunt," which we owe to the facetious pen of 
Mr. Hood, our artist has not been so successful. There is here too 
much horsemanship and not enough incident for him ; but the 
portrait of Roundings the huntsman is an excellen sketch, and a 
couple of the designs contain great humour. The first represents the 



374 



CRITICAL REVIEWS. 



Cockney hero, who, " hke a bird, was singing out while sitting on a 
tree." 

And in the second the natural order is reversed. The stag having 
taken heart, is hunting the huntsman, and the Cheapside Nimrod is 
most ignominiously running away. 

The Easter Hunt, we are told, is no more ; and as the Qiiaj'tcrly 
Review recommends the British public to purchase Mr. Catlin's 
pictures, as they form the only record of an interesting race now rapidly 
passing away, in like manner we should exhort all our friends to pur- 
chase Mr. Cruikshank's designs oi ajiothermitXQ.s\\ng race, that is run 
already and for the last time. 

Besides these, we must mention, in the line of our duty, the notable 



I 




tragedies of " Tom Thumb " and " Bombastes Furioso," both of which 
have appeared with many illustrations by Mr. Cruikshank. The 
'' brave army " of Bombastes exhibits a terrific display of brutal force, 
which must shock the sensibilities of an English radical. And we can 
well understand the caution of the general, who bids this soldatesqjie 
effraiee to begone, and not to kick up a row. 

Such a troop of lawless ruffians let loose upon a populous city 
would play sad havoc in it ; and we fancy the massacres of Bir- 
mingham renewed, or at least of Badajoz, which, though not quite so 



GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 



375 



dreadful, if we may believe his Grace the Duke of Wellington, as the 
former scenes of slaughter, were nevertheless severe enough : but 
we must not venture upon any ill-timed pleasantries in presence of the 
disturbed King Arthur and the awful ghost of Gaffer Thumb 



//r/v 




We are thus carried at once into the supernatural, and here we 
find Cruikshank reigning supreme. He has invented in his time a 
httle comic pandemonium, peopled with the most droll, good-natured 
fiends possible. We have before us Chamisso's " Peter Schlemihl," 
with Cruikshank's designs translated into German, and gaining nothing 
by the change. The " Kinder und Hans-Maerchen " of Grimm are 
likewise ornamented with a frontispiece, copied from that one which 
appeared to the amusing version of the English work. The books on 
Phrenology and Time have been imitated by the same nation ; and 
even in France, whither reputation travels slower than to any country 
except China, we have seen copies of the works of George Cruik- 
shank. 

He in return has complimented the French by illustrating a couple 
of Lives of Napoleon, and the "Life m Paris" before mentioned. He 
tias aUo made designs for Victor Hugo's "Hans of Iceland." Strange, 
wild etchings were those, on a strange, mad subject ; not so good in 
our notion as the designs for the German books, the peculiar humour 



376 CRITICAL REVIEWS. 

of which latter seemed to suit the artist exactly. There is a mixture 
of the awful and the ridiculous in these, which perpetually excites and 
keeps awake the reader's attention ; the German writer and the 
English artist seem to have an entire faith in their subject. The 
reader, no doubt, remembers the awful passage in " Peter Schlemihl," 
where the little gentleman purchases the shadow of that hero — 
" Have the kindness, noble sir, to examine and try this bag," " He 
put his hand into his pocket, and drew thence a tolerably large bag: 
of Cordovan leather, to which a couple of thongs were fixed. I 
took it from him, and immediately counted out ten gold pieces, and 
ten more, and ten more, and siill other ten, whereupon I held out 
my hand to him. Done, said I, it is a bargain ; you shall have my 
shadow for your bag. The bargain was concluded ; he knelt down 
before me, and I saw him with a wonderful neatness take my shadow 
from head to foot, lightly lift it up from the grass, roll and fold it up 
neatly, and at last pocket it. He then rose up, bowed to me once 
more, and walked away again, disappearing behind the rose-bushes. 
I don't know, but I thought I heard him laughing a little. I, how- 
ever, kept fast hold of the bag. Everything around me was bright m. 
the sun, and as yet I gave no thought to what I had done." 

This marvellous event, narrated by Peter with such a faithful, 
circumstantial detail, is painted by Cruikshank in the most wonderful 
poetic way, with that happy mixture of the real and supernatural that 
makes the narrative so curious, and like truth. The sun is shining 
with the utmost brilliancy in a great quiet park or garden ; there is a 
palace in the background, and a statue basking in the sun quite 
lonely and melancholy ; there is a sun-dial, on which is a deep 
shadow, and in the front stands Peter Schlemihl, bag in hand : the 
old gentleman is down on his knees to him, and has just lifted off 
the ground the shadow of one leg; he is going to fold it back neatly^ 
as one does the tails of a coat, and will stow it, without any creases 
or crumples, along with the other black garments that lie in that 
immense pocket of his. Cruikshank has designed all this as if he had 
a very serious belief in the story ; he laughs, to be sure, but one 
fancies that he is a little frightened in his heart, in spite of all his fun 
and joking. 

The German tales we have mentioned before. " The Prince riding 
on the Fox," " Hans in Luck," " The Fiddler and his Goose," " Heads 
off," are all drawings which, albeit not before us now, nor seen for ten 
years, remain indelibly fixed on the memory. ^'- Heisst du etwa 
Riunpelstilzchen ? " There sits the Queen on her throne, surrounded 



GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 377 

by grinning beef-eaters, and little Rumpelstiltskin stamps his foot 
through the floor in the excess of his tremendous despair. In one of 
these German tales, if we remember rightly, there is an account of a 
little orphan who is carried away by a pitying fairy for a term of seven 
years, and passing that period of sweet apprenticeship among the 
imps and sprites of fairy-land. Has our artist been among the same 
company, and brought back their portraits in his sketch-book? He 
is the only designer fairy-land has had. Callot's imps, for all theiir 
strangeness, are only of the earth earthy. Fuseli's fairies belong to 
the infernal regions ; they are monstrous, lurid, and hideously melan- 
choly. Mr. Cruikshank alone has had a true insight into the character 
of the " little people." They are something like men and women, and 
yet not flesh and blood ; they are laughing and mischievous, but why 
we know not. Mr. Cruikshank, however, has had some dream or the 
other, or else a natural mysterious instinct (as the Seherinn of Prevorst 
had for beholding ghosts), or else some preternatural fairy revelation, 
which has made him acquainted with the looks and ways of the fantas- 
tical subjects of Oberon and Titania. 

We have, unfortunately, no fairy portraits ; but, on the other hand, 
can descend lower than fairy-land, and have seen some fine speci- 
mens of devils. One is tempting a fat Dutch burgomaster, in an 
ancient gloomy market-place, such as George Cruikshank can draw 
as well as Mr. Prout, Mr. Nash, or any man living. Then there is 
our friend the burgomaster, in a highly excited state, and running 
as hard as his great legs will carry him, with our mutual enemy at his 
tail. 

What are the bets ; will that long-legged bond-holder of a devil 
come up with the honest Dutchman ? It serves him right : why did 
he put his name to stamped paper ? And yet we should not wonder 
if some lucky chance should turn up in the burgomasters favour, and 
his infernal creditor lose his labour ; for one so proverbially cunning 
as the tall individual with the saucer eye s, it must be confessed that 
he has been very often outwitted. 

There is, for instance, the case of " The Gentleman in Black," 
which has been illustrated by our artist. A young French gentleman, 
by name M. Desonge, who having expended his patrimony in a 
variety of taverns and gaming-houses, was one day pondering upon 
the exhausted state of his finances, and utterly at a loss to think how 
he should provide means for future support, exclaimed, very naturally, 
"What the devil shall I do?" He had no sooner spoken than a 
Gentleman in Black made his appearance, whose authentic portrait 



378 CRITICAL REVIEWS. 

Mr. Cruikshank has had the honour to paint. This gentleman 
produced a black-edged book out of a black bag, some black- 
edged papers tied up with black crape, and sitting down familiarly 
opposite M. Desonge, began conversing with him on the state of his 
affairs. 

It is needless to state what was the result of the interview. M. 
Desonge was induced by the gentleman to sign his name to one of the 
black-edged papers, and found himself at the close of the conversation 
to be possessed of an unhmited command of capital. This arrange- 
ment completed, the Gentleman in Black posted (in an extraordinarily 
rapid manner) from Paris to London, there found a young English 
merchant in exactly the same situation m which M. Desonge had 
been, and concluded a bargam with the Briton of exactly the same 
nature. 

The book goes on to relate how these young men spent the money 
so miraculously handed over to them, and how both, when the period 
drew near that was to witness the performance of their part of the 
bargain, grew melancholy, wretched, nay, so absolutely dishonourable 
as to seek for every means of breaking through their agreement. The 
Englishman living in a country where the lawyers are more astute than 
any other lawyers in the world, took the advice of a Mr. Bagsby, of 
Lyon's Inn ; whose name, as we cannot find it in the " Law List," we 
presume to be fictitious. Who could it be that was a match for the 

devil ? Lord very likely ; we shall not give his name, but let 

every reader of this Review fill up the blank according to his own 
fancy, and on comparing it with the copy purchased by his neigh- 
bours, he will find that fifteen out of twenty have written down the 
same honoured name. 

Well, the Gentleman in Black was anxious for the fulfilment of his 
bond. The parties met at Mr. Bagsby's chambers to consult, the 
Black Gentleman foolishly thinking that he could act as his own 
counsel, and fearing no attorney alive. But mark the superiority of 
British Law, and see how the black pettifogger was defeated. 

Mr. Bagsby simply stated that he would take the case into 
Chancery, and his antagonist, utterly humiliated and defeated, refused 
to move a step farther in the matter. 

And now the French gentleman, M. Desonge, hearing of his 
friend's escape, became anxious to be free from his own rash engage- 
ments. He employed the same counsel who had been successful in 
the former instance, but the Gentleman in Black was a great deal 
wiser by this time, and whether M. Desonge escaped, or whether he 



I 



GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 



379 



is now in that extensive place which is paved with good intentions, we 
shall not say. Those who are anxious to know had better purchase 
the book, wherein all these interesting matters are duly set down. 
There is one more diabolical picture in our budget, engraved by Mr. 
Thompson, the same dexterous artist who has rendered the former 
diablcries so well. 

We may mention Mr. Thompson's name as among the first of the 
engravers to whom Cruikshank's designs have been entrusted ; and 
next to him (if we may be allowed to make such arbitrary distinctions) 
we may place Mr. Williams ; and the reader is not possibly aware of 
the immense difficulties to be overcome in the rendering of these little 
sketches, which, traced by the designer in a few hours, require weeks' 
labour from the engraver. Mr. Cruikshank has not been educated in 
the regular schools of drawing (very luckily for him, as we think), and 
consequently has had to make a manner for himself, which is quite 
unlike that of any other draftsman. There is nothing in the least 
mechanical about it ; to produce his particular effects he uses his own 
particular lines, which are queer, free, fantastical, and must be followed 
in all their infinite twists and vagaries by the careful tool of the 
engraver. Look at these three lovely smiling heads, for instance. 



-s^"^ 







Let us examine them, not so much for the jovial humour and 
wonderful variety of feature exhibited in these darling countenances as 
for the engraver's part of the work. See the infinite delicate cross- 
lines and hatchings which he is obliged to render ; let him go, not a 
hair's breadth, but the hundredth part of a hair's breadth, beyond the 
given hne, and thtfeeimg of it is ruined. He receives these httle dots 
and specks, and fantastical quirks of the pencil, and cuts away with a 



38o CRITICAL REVIEWS. 

little knife round each, not too much nor too httle. Antonio's pound 
of flesh did not puzzle the Jew so much ; and so well does the engraver 
succeed at last, that we never remember to have met with a single 
artist who did not vow that the wood-cutter had utterly ruined his 
design. 

Of Messrs. Thompson and Williams we have spoken as the first 
engravers in point of rank ; however, the regulations of professional 
precedence are certainly very difficult, and the rest of their brethren 
we shall not endeavour to class. Why should the artists who executed 
the cuts of the admirable ''Three Courses " yield the/^j- to any one? 
If the reader will turn back to the cut on page (372 of this edition) 
he will agree with us that it is a very brilliant and faithful imitation 
of the artist's manner, and admire the pretty glimpse of landscape 
and the manner in which it is rendered ; the oyster cut is likewise very 
delicately engraved, and indeed we should be puzzled, were there no 
signatures, to assign the prize at all. 

There, for instance, is an engraving by Mr. Landells, nearly as 
good in our opinion as the very best woodcut that ever was made after 
Cruikshank, and curiously happy in rendering the artist's peculiar 
manner : this cut does not come from the facetious publications which 
we have consulted ; but is a contribution by Mr. Cruikshank to an 
elaborate and splendid botanical work upon the Orchidaceas of Mexico, 
by Mr. Bateman. Mr. Bateman despatched some extremely choice 
roots of this valuable plant to a friend in England, who, on the arrival 
of the case, consigned it to his gardener to unpack. A great deal of 
anxiety with regard to the contents was manifested by all concerned, 
but on the lid of the box being removed, there issued from it three or 
four fine specimens of the enormous Blatta beetle that had been prey- 
ing upon the plants during the voyage ; against these the gardeners, 
the grooms, the porters, and the porters' children, issued forth in arms, 
and this scene the artist has immortalized. 

We have spoken of the admirable way in which Mr. Cruikshank 
has depicted Irish character and Cockney character ; English country 
character is quite as faithfully delineated in the person of the stout 
porteress and her children, and of the " Chawbacon " with the shovel, 
on whose face is written " Zummerzetsheer." Chawbacon appears in 
another plate, or else Chawbacon's brother. He has come up to 
Lunnan, and is looking about him at raaces. 

How distinct are these rustics from those whom we have just been 
examining ! They hang about the purlieus of the metropolis : Brook 
Green, Epsom, Greenwich, Ascot, Goodwood, are their haunts. They 



GEORGE CRUIKSHANK, 



381 



visit London professionally once a year, and that is at the time of 
Bartholomew fair. How one may speculate upon the different degrees 
of rascality, as exhibited in each face of the thimblerigging trio, and 
form little histories for these worthies, charming Newgate romances, 
such as have been of late the fashion ! Is any man so blind that he 
cannot see the exact face that is writhing under the thimblerigged 
hero's hat ? Like Timanthes of old, our artist expresses great passions 
without the aid of the human countenance. There is another specimen 
—a street row of inebriated bottles. Is there any need of having a 
face after this ? " Come on ! " says Claret-bottle, a dashing, genteel 
fellow, with his hat on one ear—" Come on ! has any man a mind to 
tap me?" Claret-bottle is a httle screwed (as one may see by his 
legs), but full of gaiety and courage ; not so that stout, apoplectic 
Bottle-of-rum, who has staggered against the wall, and has his hand 
upon his liver : the fellow hurts himself with smoking, that is clear, 
and is as sick as sick can" be. See, Port is making away from the 
storm, and Double X is as flat as ditch-water. Against these, awlul 
in their white robes, the sober watchmen come. 

Our artist then can cover up faces, and yet show them quite 
clearly, as in the thimblerig group ; or he can do without faces 
altogether ; or, 




he can, at a pinch, provide a countenance for a gentleman out of any 



382 



CRITICAL REVIEWS. 



given object, — as we see a beautiful Irish physiognomy being moulded 
upon a keg of whisky ; or here, 




where a jolly English countenance froths out of a pot of ale (the spirit 
of brave Toby Philpot come back to reanimate his clay). Not to 
recognize in this fungus the physiognomy of that mushroom peer. 
Lord , would argue oneself unknown. 




Finally, if he is at a loss, he can make a living head, body, and legs 
out of steel or tortoise-shell, as in the case of this vivacious pair of 
spectacles that are jockeying the nose of Caddy Cuddle. 



GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 



383 



Of late years Mr. Cruikshank has busied himself very much with 
steel engraving, and the consequences of that lucky invention have 
been, that his plates are now sold by thousands, where they could only 
be produced by hundreds before. He has made many a bookseller's 
and author's fortune (we trust that in so doing he may not have 
neglected his own). Twelve admirable plates, furnished yearly to 
that facetious little publication, the Comic Almanac^ have gained for 
it a sale, as we hear, of nearly twenty thousand copies. The idea of 
the work was novel ; there was, in the first number especially, a great 
deal of comic power, and Cruikshank's designs were so admirable that 
the Almanac at once became a vast favourite with the public, and has 
so remained ever since. 




Besides the twelve plates, this almanac contains a prophetic wood- 
cut, accompanying an awful Blarneyhum Astrologicum that appears in 
this and other almanacs. There is one that hints in pretty clear terms 
that with the Reform of Municipal Corporations the ruin of the great 
Lord Mayor of London is at hand. His lordship is meekly going to 
dine at an eightpenny ordinar}^,— his giants in pawn, his men in armour 
dwindled to " one poor knight," his carriage to be sold, his stalwart 
aldermen vanished, his sheriffs, alas ! and alas ! in gaol ! Another 
design shows that Rigdum, if a true, is also a moral and instructive 
prophet. Behold John Bull asleep, or rather in a vision ; the cunning 
demon. Speculation, blowing a thousand bright bubbles about him. 
Meanwhile the rooks are busy at his fob, a knave has cut a cruel hole 



384 



CRITICAL REVIEWS. 



in his pocket, a rattle-snake has coiled safe round his feet, and will in 
a trice swallow Bull, chair, money and all ; the rats are at his corn-bags 




(as if, poor devil, he had corn to spare) ; his faithful dog is bolting his 
leg-of-mutton— nay, a thief has gotten hold of his very candle, and 
there, by way of moral, is his ale-pot, which looks and winks in his 
face, and seems to say, O Bull, all this is froth, and a cruel satirical 
picture of a certain rustic who had a goose that laid certain golden eggs, 




which goose the rustic slew in expectation of finding all the eggs at 



GEORGE CRUIKSHANK, 385 

once. This is goose and sage too, to borrow the pun of " learned 
Doctor Gill ; " but we shrewdly suspect ' that Mr. Cruikshank is 
becoming a little conservative in his notions. 

We love these pictures so that it is hard to part us, and we still 
fondly endeavour to hold on, but this wild word, farewell, must be 
spoken by the best friends at last, and so good-bye, brave wood-cuts : 
we feel quite a sadness in coming to the last of our collection. A word 
or two more have we to say, but no more pretty pictures, — take your 
last look of the woodcuts then — for not one more will appear after 
this page — not one more with which the pleased traveller may com- 
fort his eye — a smiling oasis in a desert of text. What could we have 
done without these excellent merry pictures? Reader and reviewer 
would have been tired of listening long since, and would have been 




comfortably asleep. 

In the earlier numbers of the Comic Almaimc all the manners and 
customs of Londoners that would afford food for fun were noted 
down ; and if during the last two years the mysterious personage 
who, under the title of " Rigdum Funnidos," compiles this ephemeris, 
has been compelled to resort to romantic tales, we must suppose 
that he did so because the great metropolis was exhausted, and 
it was necessary to discover new worlds in the cloud-land ot 
fancy. The character of Mr. Stubbs, who made his appearance in 
the Ahnanac for 1839, ^^<^? "^^ think, great merit, although his 
adventures were somewhat of too tragical a description to provoke pure 
laughter. 

We should be glad to devote a few pages to the " Illustrations of 
Time," the " Scraps and Sketches," and the " Illustrations of 

c c: 



386 CRITICAL REVIEWS. 

Phrenology," which are among the most famous of our artist's pubhca- 
tions ; but it is very difficult to find new terms of praise, as find them 
one must, when reviewing Mr. Cruikshank's publications, and more 
difficult still (as the reader of this notice will no doubt have perceived 
for himself long since) to translate his design into words, and go to 
the printer's box for a description of all that fun and humour which 
the artist can produce by a few skilful turns of his needle. A famous 
article upon the " Illustrations of Time " appeared some dozen years 
since in Blackwood's Magazine, of which the conductors have always 
been great admirers of our artist, as became men of humour and 
genius. To these grand quahties do not let it be supposed that we 
are laying claim, but, thank heaven, Cruikshank's humour is so good 
and benevolent that any man must love it, and on this score we may 
speak as well as another. 

Then there are the " Greenwich Hospital " designs, which must 
not be passed over. " Green-wich Hospital " is a hearty, good-natured 
book, in the Tom Dibdin school, treating of the virtues of British tars, 
in approved nautical language. They maul Frenchmen and Spaniards, 
they go out in brigs and take frigates, they relieve women in distress, 
and are yard-arm and yard-arming, athwart-hawsing, marlinspiking, 
binnacling, and helm's-a-leeing, as honest seamen invariably do, in 
novels, on the stage, and doubtless on board ship. This we cannot 
take upon us to say, but the artist, like a true Englishman, as he is, 
loves dearly these brave guardians of Old England, and chronicles their 
rare or fanciful exploits with the greatest good- will. Let any one look 
at the noble head of Nelson in the " Family Library," and they will, 
we are sure, think with us that the designer must have felt and loved 
what he drew. There are to this abridgment of Southey's admirable 
book many more cuts after Cruikshank ; and about a dozen pieces by 
the same hand will be found in a work equally popular, Lockhart's 
excellent " Life of Napoleon." Among these the retreat from Moscow 
is very fine ; the Mamlouks most vigorous, furious, and barbarous, as 
they should be. At the end of these three volumes Mr. Cruikshank's 
contributions to the "Family Library" seem suddenly to have ceased. 

We are not at all disposed to undervalue the works and genius of 
Mr. Dickens, and we are sure that he would admit as readily as any 
man the wonderful assistance that he has derived from the artist who 
has given us the portraits of his ideal personages, and made them 
familiar to all the world. Once seen, these figures remain impressed 
on the memory, which otherwise would have had no hold upon them, 
and the heroes and heroines of Boz become personal acquaintances 



GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 387 

with each of us. Oh, that Hogarth could have illustrated Fielding in 
the same way ! and fixed down on paper those grand figures of Parson 
Adams, and Squire Allvvorthy, and the great Jonathan Wild. 

With regard to the modern romance of " Jack Sheppard," in which 
the latter personage makes a second appearance, it seems to us that 
Mr. Cruikshank really created the tale, and that Mr. Ainsworth, as it 
were, only put words to it. Let any reader of the novel think over it 
for awhile, now that it is some months since he has perused and laid 
it down — let him think, and tell us what he remembers of the tale ? 
George Cruikshank's pictures — always George Cruikshank's pictures. 
The storm in the Thames, for instance : all the author's laboured 
description of that event has passed clean away — we have only before 
the mind's eye the fine plates of Cruikshank : the poor wretch cower- 
ing under the bridge arch, as the waves come rushing in, and the boats 
are whirling away in the drift of the great swollen black waters. And 
let any man look at that second plate of the murder on the Thames, 
and he must acknowledge how much more brilliant the artist's de- 
scription is than the writer's, and what a real genius for the terrible as 
well as for the ridiculous the former has ; how awful is the gloom of 
the old bridge, a few lights glimmering from the houses here and 
there, but not so as to be reflected on the water at all, which is too 
turbid and raging : a great heavy rack of clouds goes sweeping over 
the bridge, and men with flaring torches, the murderers, are borne 
away with the stream. 

The author requires many pages to describe the fury of the storm, 
which Mr. Cruikshank has represented in one. First, he has to prepare 
you with the something inexpressibly melancholy in sailing on a dark 
night upon the Thames : " the ripple of the water," " the darkling cur- 
rent," " the indistinctly seen craft," " the solemn shadows " and other 
phenomena visible on rivers at night are detailed (with not unskilful 
rhetoric) in order to bring the reader into a proper frame of mind for 
the deeper gloom and horror which is to ensue. Then follow pages 
of description. "As Rowland sprang to the helm, and gave the 
signal for pursuit, a roar like a volley of ordnance was heard aloft, and 
the wind again burst its bondage. A moment before, the surface of 
the stream was as black as ink. It was now whitening, hissing, and 
seething, like an enormous cauldron. The blast once more swept over 
the agitated river, whirled off the sheets of foam, scattered them far 
and wide in rain-drops, and left the raging torrent blacker than before. 
Destruction everywhere marked the course of the gale. Steeples 
toppled and towers reeled beneath its fury. All was darkness, horror, 

c c 2 



388 CRITICAL REVIEWS. 

confusion, ruin. Men fled from their tottering habitations and re- 
turned to them, scared by greater danger. The end of the world 
seemed at hand. . . . The hurricane had now reached its chmax. 
The blast shrieked, as if exulting in its wrathful mission. Stunning 
and continuous, the din seemed almost to take away the power of 
hearing. He who had faced the gale would have been instantly 
stifled,''' &c. &c. See with what a tremendous war of words (and good 
loud words too ; Mr. Ainsworth's description is a good and spirited 
one) the author is obhged to pour in upon the reader before he can 
effect his purpose upon the latter, and inspire him with a proper terror. 
The painter does it at a glance, and old Wood's dilemma in the midst 
of that tremendous storm, with the little infant at his bosom, is re- 
membered afterwards, not from the worcis, but from the visible image 
of them that the artist has left us. 

It would not, perhaps, be out of place to glance through the whole 
of the '• Jack Sheppard " plates, which are among the most finished 
and the most successful of Mr. Cruikshank's performances, and say a 
word or two concerning them. Let us begin with finding fault with 
No. I, '•' Mr. Wood offers to adopt little Jack Sheppard.'' A poor 
print, on a pcor subject ; the figure of the woman not as carefully 
designed as it might be, and the expression of the eyes (not an un- 
common fault with our artist) much caricatured. The print is cut up, 
to use the artist's phrase, by the number of accessories which the 
engraver has thought proper, after the author's elaborate description, 
elaborately to reproduce. The plate of " Wild discovering Darrell in 
the loft" is admirable — ghastly, terrible, and the treatment of it 
extraordinarily skilful, minute, and bold. The intricacies of the 
tile-work, and the mysterious twinkling of light among the beams, 
are excellently felt and rendered ; and one sees here, as in the two 
next plates of the storm and murder, what a fine eye the artist has, 
what a skilful hand, and what a sympathy for the wild and dreadful. 
As a mere imitation of nature, the clouds and the bridge in the 
murder picture may be examined by painters who make far higher 
pretensions than Mr. Cruikshank. In point of workmanship they are 
equally good, the manner quite unaffected, the effect produced without 
any violent contrast, the whole scene evidently well and philosophically 
arranged in the artist's brain, before he began to put it upon copper. 

The famous drawing of " Jack carving the name on the beam," 
which has been transferred to half the play-bills in tow'n, is over-loaded 
with accessories, as the first plate ; but they are much better arranged 
than in the last-named engraving, and do not injure the effect of the 



GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 3S9 

principal figure. Remark, too, the conscientiousness of the artist, and 
that shrewd pervading idea of form which is one of his principal 
characteristics. Jack is surrounded by all sorts of implements of his 
profession ; he stands on a regular carpenter's table : away in the 
shadow under it lie shavings and a couple of carpenter's hampers. 
The glue-pot, the mallet, the chisel-handle, the planes, the saws, the 
hone with its coVer, and the other paraphernalia are all represented 
with extraordinary accuracy and forethought. The man's mind has 
retained the exact drawing of all these minute objects (unconsciously 
perhaps to himself), but we can see with what keen eyes he must go 
through the world, and what a,fund of facts (as such a knowledge of 
the shape of objects is in his profession) this keen student of nature 
has stored away in his brain. In the next plate, where Jack is 
escaping from his mistress, the figure of that lady, one of the deepest 
of the ^uOvkoXttol, strikes us as disagreeable and unrefined ; that of 
Winifred is, on the contrary, very pretty and graceful ; and Jack's 
puzzled, slinking look must not be forgotten. All the accessories are 
good, and the apartment has a snug, cosy air ; which is not remarkable, 
except that it shows how faithfully the designer has performed his w^ork, 
and how curiously he has entered into all the particulars of the subject. 
Master Thames Darrell, the handsome young man of the book, is, 
in Mr. Cruikshank's portraits of him, no favourite of ours. The lad 
seems to wish to make up for the natural insignificance of his face by 
frowning on all occasions most portentously. This figure, borrowed 
from the compositors case, will give a notion of what Ave 

"'I 

(if we may call Fielding history), but this is in consonance B 
with the ranting, frowning, braggadocio character that Mr. Ains worth 
has given him. 

The " Interior of Willesden Church" is excellent as a composition, 
and a piece of artistical workmanship ; the groups are well arranged ; 
and the figure of Mrs. Sheppard looking round alarmed, as her son is 
robbing the dandy Kneebone, is charming, simple, and unaffected. 
Not so " Mrs. Sheppard ill in bed," whose face is screwed up to an 
expression vastly too tragic. The little glimpse of the church seen 
through the open door of the room is very beautiful and poetical : it 
is in such small hints that our artist especially excels ; they are the 
morals which he loves to append to his stories, and are always 
appropriate and welcome. The boozing ken is not to our liking ; 
Mrs. Sheppard is there with her horrified eyebrows again. Why this 
exaggeration — is it necessary for the public? We think not, or if they 



^V* 



390 CRITICAL REVIEWS. 

require such excitement, let our artist, like a true painter as he is, teach 
them better things.* 

The " Escape from Willesden Cage '^ is excellent ; the " Burglary 
in Wood's house" has not less merit ; " Mrs. Sheppard in Bedlam," a 
ghastly picture indeed, is finely conceived, but not, as we fancy, so 
carefully executed ; it would be better for a little more careful drawing 
in the female figure. 

"Jack sitting for his picture" is a very pleasing group, and 
savours of the manner of Hogarth, who is introduced in the company. 
The " Murder of Trenchard " must be noticed too as remarkable for 
the effect and terrible vigour which the artist has given to the scene. 
The '' Willesden Churchyard" has great merit too, but the gems of the 
book are the little vignettes illustrating the escape from Newgate. 
Here, too, much anatomical care of drawing is not required ; the 
figures are so small that the outline and attitude need only to be 
indicated, and the designer has produced a series of figures quite 
remarkable for reality and poetry too. There are no less than ten of 
Jack's feats so described by Mr, Cruikshank. (Let us say a word 
here in praise of the excellent manner in which the author has carried 
us through the adventure.) Here is Jack clattering up the chimney, 
now peering into the lonely red room, now opening "the door between 
the red room and the chapel." What a wild, fierce, scared look he 
has, the young ruffian, as cautiously he steps in, holding light his bar 
of iron. You can see by his face how his heart is beating ! If any 
one were there ! but no ! And this is a very fine characteristic of the 
prints, the extreme loneliness of them all. Not a soul is there to dis- 
turb him — woe to him who should — and Jack drives in the chapel 
gate, and shatters down the passage door, and there you have him on 
the leads. Up he goes ! it is but a spring of a few feet from the 
blanket, and he is gonQ—adiil, evasil, erupit I Mr. Wild must catch 
him again if he can. 

* A gentleman (whose wit is so celebrated that one should be very cautious 
in repeating his stories) gave the writer a good illustration of the philosophy of 

exaggeration. Mr. was once behind the scenes at the Opera when the 

scene-shifters were preparing for the ballet. Flora was to sleep under a bush, 
whereon were growing a number of roses, and amidst which was fluttering a 
gay covey of butterflies. In size the roses exceeded the most expansive sun- 
flowers, and the butterflies were as large as cocked hats ;— the scene-shifter 

explained to Mr. , who asked the reason why everything was so magnified, 

that the galleries could never see the objects unless they were enormously 
exaggerated. How many of our writers and designers work for the galleries ? 



GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 391 

We must not forget to mention " Oliver Twist," and Mr. Cruik- 
shank's famous designs to that work.* The sausage scene at Fagins, 
Nancy seizing the boy ; that capital piece of humour, Mr. Bumble's 
courtship, which is even better in Cruikshank's version than in Boz's 
exquisite account of the interview : Sykes's farewell to the dog ; and 
the Jew, — the dreadful Jew — that Cruikshank drew ! What a fine 
touching picture of melancholy desolation is that of Sykes and the 
dog ! The poor cur is not too well drawn, the landscape is stiff and 
formal ; but in this case the faults, if faults they be, of execution rather 
add to than diminish the effect of the picture : it has a strange, wild, 
dreary, broken-hearted look ; we fancy we see the landscape as it 
must have appeared to Sykes, when ghastly and with bloodshot eyes 
he looked at it. As for the Jew in the dungeon, let us say nothing 
of it — what can we say to describe it ? What a fine homely poet is 
the man who can produce this little world of mirth or woe for us ! 
Does he elaborate his effects by slow process of thought, or do they 
come to him by instinct? Does the painter ever arrange in his brain 
an image so complete, that he afterwards can copy it exactly on the 
canvas, or does the hand work in spite of him ? 

A great deal of this random work of course every artist has done 
in his time ; many men produce effects of which they never dreamed, 
and strike oft excellences, haphazard, which gain for them reputation ; 
but a fine quality in Mr. Cruikshank, the quality of his success, as we 
have said before, is the extraordinary earnestness and good faith with 
which he executes all he attempts— the ludicrous, the polite, the low, 
the terrible. In the second of these, he often, in our fancy, fails, his 
figures lacking elegance and descending to caricature ; but there is 
something fine in this too : it is gDod that he should fail, that he should 
have these honest nai've notions regarding the beau monde^ the charac- 
teristics of which a namby-pamby tea-party painter could hit off far 
better than he. He is a great deal too downright and manly to appre- 
ciate the flimsy delicacies of small society — you cannot expect a lion to 
roar you hke any sucking dove, or frisk about a drawing-room like a 
lady's little spaniel. 

If then, in the course of his life and business, he has been occa- 
sionally obliged to Imitate the ways of such small animals, he has 
done so, let us say it at once, clumsily, and like as a lion should. 
Many artists, we hear, hold his works rather cheap ; they prate about 

* Or his new work, **The Tower of London," which promises even to 
surpass Mr. Cruikshank's former productions. 



392 CRITICAL REVIEWS. 

bad drawing, want of scientific knowledge ; — they would have some- 
thing vastly more neat, regular, anatomical. 

Not one of the whole band most likely but can paint an Academy 
figure better than himself ; nay, or a portrait of an alderman's lady 
and family of children. But look down the list of the painters and tell 
us who are they ? How many among these men are poets (makers), 
possessing the faculty to create, the greatest among the gifts with 
which Providence has endowed the mind of man '^. Say how many 
there are, count up what they have done, and see what in the course 
of some nine-and-twenty years has been done by this indefatigable 
man. 

What amazing energetic fecundity do we find in him ! As a boy 
he began to fight for bread, has been hungry (twice a day we trust) 
ever since, and has been obliged to sell his wit for his bread week by 
w^eek. And his wit, sterling gold as it is, will find no such purchasers 
as the fashionable painter's thin pinchbeck, w^ho can live comfortably 
for six weeks, when paid for and painting a portrait, and fancies his 
mind prodigiously occupied all the while. There was an artist in 
Paris, an artist hairdresser, who used to be fatigued and take 
restoratives after inventmg a new coiffure. By no such gentle opera- 
tion of head-dressing has Cruikshank lived : time was (we are told so 
in print) when for a picture with thirty heads in it he w^as paid three 
guineas — a poor week's pittance truly, and a dire week's labour. We 
make no doubt that the same labour would at present bring him 
twenty times the sum ; but whether it be ill paid or well, what labour 
has Mr. Cruikshank's been ! Week by week, for thirty years, to pro- 
duce something new ; some smiling offspring of painful labour, quite 
independent and distinct from its ten thousand jovial brethren ; in 
what hours of sorrow and ill-health to be told by the world, " Make 
us laugh or you starve — Give us fresh fun ; we have eaten up the old 
and are hungry." And all this has he been obliged to do — to wring 
laughter day by day, sometimes, perhaps, out of want, often certainly 
from ill-health or depression — to keep the fire of his brain perpetually 
alight : for the greedy public will give it no leisure to cool. This he 
has done and done well. He has told a thousand truths in as many 
strange and fascinating ways ; he has given a thousand new and 
pleasant thoughts to millions of people ; he has never used his wit 
dishonestly ; he has never, in all the exuberance of his frolicsome 
humour, caused a single painful or guilty blush : how little do we think 
of the extraordinary power of this man, and how ungrateful we are to 
him ! 



GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 393 

Here, as we are come round to the charge of ingratitude, the 
starting-post from which we set out, perhaps we had better conclude. 
The reader will perhaps wonder at the high-flown tone in which we 
speak of the services and merits of an individual, whom he considers 
a humble scraper on steel, that is wonderfully popular already. But 
none of us remember all the benefits we owe him ; they have come 
one by one, one driving out the memory of the other : it is only when 
we come to examine them altogether, as the writer has done, who has 
a pile of books on the table before him — a heap of personal kindnesses 
from George Cruikshank (not presents, if you please, for we bought, 
borrowed, or stole every one of them) — that we feel what we owe him. 
Look at one of Mr. Cruikshank's works, and we pronounce him an ex- 
cellent humourist. Look at all : his reputation is increased by a kind 
of geometrical progression ; as a whole diamond is a hundred times 
more valuable than the hundred splinters into which it might be broken 
would be. A fine rough English diamond is this about which we have 
been writin.sr. 



595 



JOHN LEECH'S PICTURES OF LIFE AND 
CHARACTER,'' 

'I "X TE, who can recall the consulship of Plancus, and quite respect- 
* * able, old-fogeyfied times, remember amongst other amuse- 
ments which we had as children the pictures at which we were 
permitted to look. There was Boydell's Shakspeare, black and 
ghastly gallery of murky Opies, glum Northcotes, straddling Fuselis ! 
there were Lear, Oberon, Hamlet, with starting muscles, rolling eye- 
balls, and long pointing quivering fingers; there was little Prince 
Arthur (Northcote) crying, in white satin, and bidding good Hubert 
not put out his eyes ; there was Hubert crying ; there was Httle 
Rutland being run through the poor little body by bloody Clifford ; 
there was Cardinal Beaufort (Reynolds) gnashing his teeth, and 
grinning and howling demoniacally on his deathbed (a picture frightful 
to the present day) ; there was Lady Hamilton (Romney) waving 
a torch, and dancing before a black background, — a melancholy 
museum indeed. Smirke's delightful " Seven Ages " only fitfully 
relieved its general gloom. We did not like to inspect it unless the 
elders were present, and plenty of lights and company were in the 
room. 

Cheerful relatives used to treat us to Miss Linwood's. Let the 
children of the present generation thank their stars that tragedy is 
put out of their way. Miss Linwood's was worsted-work. Your 
grandmother or grandaunts took you there, and said the pictures were 
admirable. You saw " the Woodman " in worsted, with his axe and 
dog, trampling through the snow ; the snow bitter cold to look at, the 
woodman's pipe wonderful : a gloomy piece, that made you shudder. 
There were large dingy pictures of woollen martyrs, and scowling 
warriors with limbs strongly knitted ; there was especially, at the end 
of a black passage, a den of lions, that would frighten any boy not 
bom in Africa, or Exeter 'Change, and accustomed to them. 

* Reprinted from the QtiarUrly Rcviciv, No. 191, Dec. 1854, by permission 
of Mr, John Murray. 



396 CRITICAL REVIEWS. 

Another exhibition used to be West's Gallery, where the pleasing 
figures of Lazarus in his grave-clothes, and Death on the pale horse, 
used to impress us children. The tombs of Westminster Abbey, the 
vaults at St. Paul's, the men in armour at the Tower, frowning 
ferociously out of their helmets, and wieldmg their dreadful swords ; 
that superhuman Queen Elizabeth at the end of the room, a livid 
sovereign with glass eyes, a ruff, and a dirty satin petticoat, riding a 
horse covered with steel : who does not remember these sights in 
London in the consulship of Plancus ? and the wax-work m Fleet 
Street, not like that of Madame Tussaud's, whose chamber of death is 
gay and brilhant ; but a nice old gloomy waxwork, full of murderers; 
and as a chief attraction, the Dead Baby and the Princess Charlotte 
lying in state? 

Our story-books had no pictures in them for the most part. Frank 
(dear old Frank !) had none ; nor the '' Parent's Assistant ; " nor the 
" Evenings at Home ; " nor our copy of the " Ami des Enfans : " there 
were a few just at the end of the Spelling-Book ; besides the allegory 
at the beginning, of Education leading up Youth to the temple of 
Industry, where Doctor Dilworth and Professor Walkinghame stood 
with crowns of laurel. There were, we say, just a few pictures at the 
end of the Spelling-Book, little oval grey woodcuts of Bewick's, mostly 
of the Wolf and the Lamb, the Dog and the Shadow, and Brown, 
Jones, and Robinson with long ringlets and little tights ; but for 
pictures, so to speak, what had we 1 The rough old woodblocks in 
the old harlequin-backed fairy-books had served hundreds of years ; 
before our Plancus, in the time of Priscus Plancus— in Queen Anne's 
time, who knows? We were flogged at school; we were fifty boys in 
our boarding-house, and had to wash in a leaden trough, under a 
cistern, with lumps of fat yellow soap floating about in the ice and 
water. Are oiir sons ever flogged? Have they not dressing-rooms, 
hair-oil, hip-baths, and Baden towels? And what picture-books the 
young villains have ! What have these children done that they should 
be so much happier than we were ? 

We had the "Arabian Nights" and Walter Scott, to be sure. 
Smirke's illustrations to the former are very fine. We did not know 
how good they were then ; but we doubt whether we did not prefer 
the little old "Miniature Library Nights" with frontispieces by 
Uwins ; for these books the pictures don't count. Every boy of 
imagination does his own pictures to Scott and the " Arabian Nights" 
best. 

Of funny pictures there were none especially intended for us 



LEECH'S PICTURES OF LIFE AND CHARACTER. 397 

children. There was Rowlandson's "Doctor Syntax :" Doctor Syntax, 
in a fuzz-wig, on a horse with legs like sausages, riding races, making 
love, frohcking with rosy exuberant damsels. Those pictures were 
very funny, and that aquatinting and the gay-coloured plates very 
pleasant to witness ; but if we could not read the poem in those days, 
could we digest it in this ? Nevertheless, apart from the text which 
we could not master, we remember Doctor Syntax pleasantly, like 
those cheerful painted hieroglyphics in the Nineveh Court at Syden- 
ham. What matter for the arrow-head, illegible stuff.? give us the 
placid grinning kings, twanging their jolly bows over their rident 
horses, wounding those good-humoured enemies, who tumble gaily off 
the towers, or drown, smiling, in the dimpling waters, amidst the 
anerithmon gelasma of the fish. 

After Doctor Syntax, the apparition of Corinthian Tom, Jerry 
Hawthorn, and the facetious Bob Logic must be recorded — a wondrous 
history indeed theirs was ! When the future student of our manners 
comes to look over the pictures and the writing of these queer volumes, 
what will he think of our society, customs, and language in the consul- 
ship of Plancus .? " Corinthian," it appears, was the phrase applied to 
men of fashion and ton in Plancus's time : they were the brilhant 
predecessors of the " swell" of the present period — brilliant, but some- 
what barbarous, it must be confessed. The Corinthians were in the 
habit of drinking a great deal too much in Tom Cribb's parlour : they 
used to go and see " life " in the gin-shops ; of nights, walking home 
(as well as they could), they used to knock down " Charleys," poor 
harmless old watchmen with lanterns, guardians of the streets of Rome, 
Planco Consule. They perpetrated a vast deal of boxing ; they put 
on the " mufflers " in Jackson's rooms ; they " sported their prads" in 
the Ring in the Park ; they attended cock-fights, and were enlightened 
patrons of dogs and destroyers of rats. Besides these sports, the 
delassemeiis of gentlemen mixing with the people, our patricians, of 
course, occasionally enjoyed the society of their own class. What a 
wonderful picture that used to be of Corinthian Tom dancing with 
Corinthian Kate at Almack's ! What a prodigious dress Kate wore ! 
With what graceful abandon the pair flung their arms about as they 
swept through the mazy quadrille, with all the noblemen standing 
round in their stars and uniforms ! You may still, doubtless, see the 
pictures at the British Museum, or find the volumes in the corner of 
some old country-house library. You are led to suppose that the 
English aristocracy of 1820 ^/^ dance and caper in that way, and box 
and drink at Tom Cribb's, and knock down watchmen ; and the 



398 CRITICAL REVIEWS. 

children of to-day, turning to their elders, may say. " Grandmamma, 
did you wear such a dress as thai when you danced at Almack's ? 
There was very little of it, grandmamma. Did grandpapa kill many 
watchmen when he was a young man, and frequent thieves' gin-shops, 
cock-fights, and the ring, before you married him ? Did he use to 
talk the extraordinary slang and jargon which is printed in this book ? 
He is very much changed. He seems a gentlemanly old boy enough 
now." 

In the above-named consulate, when we had grandfathers alive, 
there would be in the old gentleman's library in the country two 
or three old mottled portfolios, or great swollen scrap-books of blue 
paper, full of the comic prints of grandpapa's time, ere Plancus ever 
had the fasces borne before him. These prints were signed Gilray, 
Bunbury, Rowlandson, Woodward, and some actually George Cruik- 
shank — for George is a veteran now, and he took the etching 
needle in hand as a child. He caricatured " Boney," borrowing 
not a little from Gilray in his first puerile efforts. He drew Louis 
XVI n. trying on Boney's boots. Before the century was actually 
in its teens we believe that George Cruikshank was amusing the 
public. 

In those great coloured prints in our grandfathers portfolios in 
the library, and in some other apartments of the house, where the 
caricatures used to be pasted in those days, we found things quite 
beyond our comprehension. Boney was represented as a fierce 
dwarf, with goggle eyes, a huge laced hat and tri coloured plume, a 
crooked sabre, reeking with blood : a little demon revelling in lust, 
murder, massacre. John Bull was shown kicking him a good deal : 
indeed he was prodigiously kicked all through that series of pictures ; 
by Sidney Smith and our brave allies the gallant Turks ; by the 
excellent and patriotic Spaniards ; by the amiable and indignant 
Russians,— all nations had boots at the service of poor Master Boney. 
How Pitt used to defy him ! How good old George, King of 
Brobdingnag, laughed at Gulliver- Boney, sailing about in his tank to 
make sport for their Majesties ! This little fiend, this beggar's brat, 
cowardly, murderous, and atheistic as he was (we remember, in those 
old portfolios, pictures representing Boney and his family in rags, 
gnawing raw bones in a Corsican hut ; Boney murdering the sick at 
Jaffa ; Boney with a hookah and a large turban, having adopted the 
Turkish religion, &c.)— this Corsican monster, nevertheless, had some 
devoted friends in England, according to the Gilray chronicle, — a 
set of villains who loved atheism, tyranny, plunder, and wickedness in 



LEECH'S PICTURES OF LIFE AND CHARACTER. 399 

general, like their French friend. In the pictures these men were all 
represented as dwarfs, like their ally. The miscreants got into power 
at one time, and, if we remember right, were called the Broad-backed 
Administration. One with shaggy eyebrows and a bristly beard, the 
hirsute ringleader of the rascals, was, it appears, called Charles James 
Fox ; another miscreant, with a blotched countenance, was a certain 
Sheridan ; other imps were hight Erskine, Norfolk (Jockey of), Moira, 
Henry Petty. As in our childish innocence we used to look at these 
demons, now sprawHng and tipsy in their cups ; now cursing the 
light (their atrocious ringleader Fox was represented with hairy cloven 
feet, and a tail and horns) ; now kissing Boney's boot, but inevitably 
discomfited by Pitt and the other good angels : we hated these vicious 
wretches, as good children should ; we were on the side of Virtue and 
Pitt and Grandpapa. But if our sisters wanted to look at the port- 
folios, the good old grandfather used to hesitate. There were some 
prints among them very odd indeed; some that girls could not 
understand ; some that boys, indeed, had best not see. We swiftly 
turn over those prohibited pages. How many of them there were in 
the wild, coarse, reckless, ribald, generous book of old English 
humour ! 

How savage the satire was— how fierce the assault — what garbage 
hurled at opponents— what foul blows were hit— what language of 
Billingsgate flung ! Fancy a party in a country-house now looking 
over Woodward's facetiae or some of the Gilray comicalities, or the 
slatternly Saturnalia of Rowlandson ! Whilst we live we must laugh, 
and have folks to make us laugh. We cannot afford to lose Satyr 
with his pipe and dances and gambols. But we have washed, combed, 
clothed, and taught the rogue good manners : or rather, let us say, 
he has learned them himself ; for he is of nature soft and kindly, and 
he has put aside his mad pranks and tipsy habits ; and, frolicsome 
always, has become gentle and harmless, smitten into shame by the 
pure presence of our women and the sweet confiding smiles of our 
children. Among the veterans, the old pictorial satirists, we have 
mentioned the famous name of one humourous designer who is still 
alive and at work. Did we not see, by his own hand, his own portrait 
of his own famous face, and whiskers, in the Illustrated London News 
the other day ? There was a print in that paper of an assemblage of 
Teetotallers in " Sadler's Wells Theatre," and we straightway recognized 
the old Roman hand— the old Roman's of the time of Plancus— George 
Cruikshank's. There were the old bonnets and droll faces and shoes, 
and short trousers, and figures of 1 820 sure enough. And there was 



400 CRITICAL REVIEWS. 

George (who has taken to the water-doctrine, as all the world knows) 
handing some teetotalleresses over a plank to the table where the 
pledge was being administered. How often has George drawn that 
picture of Cruikshank ! Where haven't we seen it ? How fine it was, 
facing the effigy of Mr. Ains worth in Ainsivorth's Magazine when 
George illustrated that periodical ! How grand and severe he stands 
in that design in G. C.'s " Omnibus," where he represents himself 
tonged Hke St. Dunstan, and tw^eaking a wretch of a publisher by the 
nose ! The collectors of George's etchings — oh the charming etchings ! 
— oh the dear old " German Popular Tales ! " — the capital "Points of 
Humour" — the delightful "Phrenology" and "Scrap-books," of the 
good time, our lime — Plancus's in fact ! — the collectors of the Georgian 
etchings, we say, have at least a hundred pictures of the artist. Why, 
we remember him in his favourite Hessian boots in " Tom and Jerry" 
itself; and in woodcuts as far back as the Queen's trial. He has 
rather deserted satire and comedy of late years, having turned his 
attention to the serious, and warlike, and sublime. Having confessed 
our age and prejudices, we prefer the comic and fanciful to the historic, 
romantic, and at present didactic George. May respect, and length 
of days, and comfortable repose attend the brave, honest, kindly, 
pure-minded artist, humourist, morahst ! It was he first who brought 
English pictorial humour and children acquainted. Our young people 
and their fathers and mothers owe him many a pleasant hour and 
harmless laugh. Is there no way in which the country could ac- 
knowledge the long services and brave career of such a friend and 
benefactor ? 

Since George's time humour has been converted. Comus and his 
wicked satyrs and leering fauns have disappeared, and fled into the 
lowest haunts ; and Comus's lady (if she had a taste for humour, which 
may be doubted) might take up our funny picture-books without the 
shghtest precautionary squeamishness. What can be purer than the 
charming fancies of Richard Doyle? In all Mr. Punch's huge galleries 
can't we walk as safely as through Miss Pinkerton's school-rooms ? 
And as we look at Mr. Punch's pictures, at the Ilhistrated News 
pictures, at all the pictures in the book-shop windows at this Christmas 
season, as oldsters, we feel a certain pang of envy against the young- 
sters — they are too well off. Why hadn't we picture-books ? Why 
were we flogged so ? A plague on the lictors and their rods in the 
time of Plancus ! 

And now, after this rambling preface, we are arrived at the subject 
in hand — Mr. John Leech and his " Pictures of Life and Character,'* 



LEECH'S PICTURES OF LIFK AND CHARACTER. 401 

in the collection of Mr. Punch, This book is better than plum-cake 
at Christmas. It is an enduring plum-cake, which you may eat and 
which you may slice and deliver to your friends ; and to which^ 
having cut it, you may come again and welcome, from year's end to 
year's end. In the frontispiece you see Mr. Punch examining the 
pictures in his gallery — a portly, well-dressed, middle-aged, respect- 
able gentleman, in a white neckcloth, and a polite evening costume — 
smiling in a very bland and agreeable manner upon one of his pleasant 
drawings, taken out of one of his handsome portfolios. Mr. Punch 
has very good reason to smile at the work and be satisfied with the 
artist. Mr. Leech, his chief contributor, and some kindred humourists, 
with pencil and pen have served Mr. Punch admirably. Time was, if 
we remember Mr. P.'s history rightly, that he did not wear silk 
stockings nor well-made clothes (the little dorsal irregularity in his 
figure is almost an ornament now, so excellent a tailor has he). He 
was of humble beginnings. It is said he kept a ragged little booth, 
which he put up at corners of streets ; associated with beadles, 
policemen, his own ugly wife (whom he treated most scandalously), 
and persons in a low station of life ; earning a precarious livelihood 
by the cracking of wild jokes, the singing of ribald songs, and half- 
pence extorted from passers-by. He is the Satyric genius we spoke 
of anon : he cracks his jokes still, for satire must live ; but he is 
combed, washed, neatly clothed, and perfectly presentable. He goes 
into the very best company ; he keeps a stud at Melton ; he has a 
moor in Scotland ; he rides in the Park ; has his stall at the Opera ; 
is constantly dining out at clubs and in private society ; and goes 
every night in the season to balls and parties, where you see the most 
beautiful women possible. He is Avelcomed amongst his new friends 
the great ; though, like the good old English gentleman of the song, 
he does not forget the small. He pats the heads of street boys and 
girls ; relishes the jokes of Jack the costermonger and Bob the dust- 
man ; good-naturedly spies out Molly the cook flirting with policeman 
X, or Mary the nursemaid as she listens to the fascinating guardsman. 
He used rather to laugh at guardsmen, " plungers," and other military 
men ; and was until latter days very contemptuous in his behaviour 
towards Frenchmen. He has a natural antipathy to pomp, and 
swagger, and fierce demeanour. But nov/ that the guardsmen are 
gone to war, and the dandies of " The Rag" — dandies no more — are 
battling like heroes at Balaklava and Inkermann * by the side of their 

* This was written in 1854. 
D U 



402 CRITICAL REVIEWS. 

heroic allies, Mr. Punch's laughter is changed to hearty respect and 
enthusiasm. It is not against courage and honour he wars : but this 
great moralist — must it be owned ? — has some popular British pre- 
judices, and these led him in peace time to laugh at soldiers and 
Frenchmen. If those hulking footmen who accompanied the carriages 
to the opening of Parliament the other day, would form a plush brigade, 
wear only gunpowder in their hair, and strike with their great canes 
on the enemy, Mr. Punch would leave off laughing at Jeames, who 
meanwhile remains among us, to all outward appearance regardless of 
satire, and calmly consuming his five meals per diem. Against lawyers, 
beadles, bishops and clergy, and authorities, Mr. Punch is still rather 
bitter. At the time of the Papal aggression he was prodigiously angry ; 
and one of the chief misfortunes which happened to him at that period 
was that, through the violent opinions which he expressed regarding 
the Roman Catholic hierarchy, he lost the invaluable services, the 
graceful pencil, the harmless wit, the charming fancy of Mr. Doyle. 
Another member of Mr. Punch's cabinet, the biographer of Jeames, 
the author of the " Snob Papers," resigned his functions on account 
of Mr. Punch's assaults upon the present Emperor of the French 
nation, whose anger Jeames thought it was unpatriotic to arouse. 
Mr. Punch parted with these contributors : he filled their places 
with others as good. The boys at the railroad stations cried Punch 
just as cheerily, and sold just as many numbers, after these events as 
before. 

There is no blinking the fact that in Mr. Punch's cabinet John 
Leech is the right-hand man. Fancy a number of Punch without 
Leech's pictures ! What would you give for it? The learned gentle- 
men who write the work must feel that, without him, it were as well 
left alone. Look at the rivals whom the popularity of Pimch has 
brought into the field ; the direct imitators of Mr. Leech's manner — 
the artists with a manner of their own— how inferior their pencils are 
to his in humour, in depicting the public manners, in arresting, 
amusing the nation. The truth, the strength, the free vigour, the 
kind humour, the John Bull pluck and spirit of that hand are 
approached by no competitor. With what dexterity he draws a horse, 
a woman, a child ! He feels them all, so to speak, hke a man. What 
plump young beauties those are with which Mr. Punch's chief contri- 
butor supplies the old gentleman's pictorial harem ! What famous 
thews and sinews Mr. Punch's horses have, and how Briggs, on the 
back of them, scampers across country ! You see youth, strength, 
enjoyment, manliness in those drawings, and in none more so, to our 



LEECH'S PICTURES OF LIFE AND CHARACTER. 403 

thinking, than in the hundred pictures of children which this artist 
loves to design. Like a brave, hearty, good-natured Briton, he 
becomes quite soft and tender with the httle creatures, pats gently 
their Httle golden heads, and watches with unfailing pleasure their 
ways, their sports, their jokes, laughter, caresses. Enfans terribles 
come home from Eton ; young Miss practising her first flirtation ; 
poor little ragged Polly making dirt-pies in the gutter, or staggering 
under the weight of Jacky, her nursechild, who is as big as herself — 
all these little ones, patrician and plebeian, meet with kindness from 
this kind heart, and are v/atched with curious nicety by this amiable 
observer. 

We remember, in one of those ancient Gilray portfolios, a print 
which used to cause a sort of terror in us youthful spectators, and in 
which the Prince of Wales (his Royal Highness was a Foxite then) 
was represented as sitting alone in a magnificent hall after a volup- 
tuous meal, and using a great steel fork in the guise of a toothpick. 
Fancy the first young gentleman living employing such a weapon m 
such a way! The most elegant Prince of Europe engaged with a 
two-pronged iron fork — the heir of Britannia with a bident ! The 
man of genius who drew that picture saw little of the society which 
he satirised and amused. Gilray watched pubHc characters as they 
walked by the shop in St. James's Street, or passed through the lobby 
of the House of Commons. His studio was a garret, or little better ; 
hib place of amusement a tavern- parlour, where his club held its 
nightly sittings over their pipes and sanded floor. You could not 
have society represented by men to whom it was not famihar. When 
Gavarni came to England a few years since — one of the wittiest of 
men, one of the most brilhant and dexterous of draughtsmen — he 
published a book of " Les Anglais," and his Anglais were all French 
men. The eye, so keen and so long practised to observe Parisian 
life, could not perceive English character. A social painter must be 
of the world which he depicts, and native to the manners which he 
portrays. 

Now, any one who looks over Mr. Leech's portfolio must see that 
the social pictures which he gives us are authentic. What comfortable 
little drawing-rooms and dining-rooms, what snug libraries we enter ; 
what fine young-gentlemanly wags they are, those beautiful little 
dandies who wake up gouty old grandpapa to ring the bell ; who 
decline aunt's pudding and custards, saying that they will reserve 
themselves for an anchovy toast with the claret ; who talk together in 
ball-room doors, where Fred whispers Charley — pointing to a dear 



404 



CRITICAL REVIEWS. 



little partner seven years old—" My dear Charley, she has very much 
gone off ; you should have seen that girl last season ! " Look well at 
everything appertaining to the economy of the famous Mr. Briggs : 
how snug, quiet, appropriate all the appointments are ! What a com- 
fortable, neat, clean, middle-class house Briggs's is (in the Bayswater 
suburb of London, we should guess from the sketches of the sur- 
rounding scenery) ! What a good stable he has, with a loose box for 
those celebrated hunters which he rides ! How pleasant, clean, and 




warm his breakfast-table looks ! What a trim little maid brings in 
the top-boots which horrify Mrs. B ! What a snug dressing-room he 
has, complete in all its appointments, and in which he appears trying 
on the delightful hunting-cap which Mrs. Briggs flings into the fire ! 
How cosy all the Briggs party seem in their dining-room : Briggs 
reading a Treatise on Dog-breaking by a lamp ; Mamma and Grannie 
with their respective needleworks ; the children clustering round a 
great book of prints — a great book of prints such as this before us, 
which, at this season, must make thousands of children happy by as 



LEECH'S PICTURES OF LIFE AND CHARACTER. 405 

many firesides ! The inner life of all these people is represented : 
Leecn draws them as naturally as Teniers depicts Dutch boors, or 




Morland pigs and stables. It is your house and mine : we are looking 
at everybody's family circle. Our boys coming from school give 



4o6 



CRITICAL REVIEWS. 



themselves such airs, the young scapegraces ! our girls, going to parties, 
are so tricked out by fond mammas — a social history of London in 




the middle of the nineteenth century. As such, future students — lucky 
they to have a book so pleasant — will regard these pages : even the 
mutations of fashion they m.ay follow here if they be so inclined. Mr. 



LEECH'S PICTURES OF LIFE AND CHARACTER. 407 

Leech has as fine an eye for tailory and millinery as for horse-flesh. 
How they change those cloaks and bonnets ! How we have to pay 




milliners' bills from year to year ! Where are those prodigious 
chatelaines of 1850 which no lady could be without? Where those 
charming waistcoats, those " stunning" waistcoats, which our young 



CRITICAL REVIEWS. 



seasons back, and which cause 'Gus, in the 



girls used to wear a few brief 

sweet little sketch of .;La Mode." to ask Elle;; ^{^^^^Z^::^ 

Gus ,s a young warnor by this time, very likely facing the enemy ai 




Inkermann ; and pretty Ellen, and that love of a sister of hers are 
marned and happy let us hope, superintending one of those delightful 
nursery scenes which our artist depicts with such tender humour 
Fortunate art.st, mdeed ! You sec he must have been bred at a good 



LEECH'S PICTURES OF LIFE AND CHARACTER, 409 

public school ; that he has ridden many a good horse in his day ; paid, 
no doubt, out of his own purse for the originals of some of those lovely 
caps and bonnets ; and watched paternally the ways, smiles, froUcs, 
and slumbers of his favourite little people. 

As you look at the drawings, secrets come out of ihem,— private 
jokes, as it were, imparted to you by the author for your spedal 




delectation. How remarkably, for instance, has Mr. Leech observed 
the hair-dressers of the present age ! Look at " Mr. Tongs," whom 
that hideous old bald woman, who ties on her bonnet at the glass, 
informs that " she has used the whole bottle of balm of California, 
but her hair comes off yet." You can see the bear's-grease not only 



on Tongs' head but on 
together. Remark him 



his hands, which he is clapping clammily 
'ho is telling his client " there is cholera in 



4IO 



CRITICAL REVIEWS, 



the hair ; " and that lucky rogue whom the young lady bids to cut off 
" a long thick piece "—for somebody, doubtless. All these men are 




I 



different, and delightfully natural and absurd. Why should hair- 
dressing be an absurd profession ? 

The amateur will remark what an excellent part hands play in 
Mr. Leech's pieces : his admirable actors use them with perfect 



LEECH'S PICTURES OF LIFE AND CHARACTER. 411 




naturalness. Look at Betty, putting the urn down ; at cook, laying 
her hands on the kitchen table, whilst her policeman grumbles at 




the cold meat. They are cook's and housemaid's hands without 



412 



CRITICAL REVIEWS. 



mistake, and not without a certain beauty too. The bald old lady, 
who is tying her bonnet at Tongs', has hands which you see are 
trembling. Watch the fingers of the two old harridans who are 
talking scandal ; for what long years past they have pointed out 
holes in their neighbours' dresses, and mud on their flounces. " Here's 




a go ! I've lost my diamond ring." As the dustman utters this 
pathetic cry, and looks at his hand, you burst out laughing. These 
are among the little points of humour. One could indicate hundreds 
of such as one turns over the pleasant pages. 

There is a little snob or gent, whom we all of us know, who wears 



LEECH'S PICTURES OF LIFE AND CHARACTER. 413 

little tufts on his little chin, outrageous pins and pantaloons, smokes 
cigars on tobacconists' counters, sucks his cane in the streets, struts 
about with Mrs. Snob and the baby (Mrs. S. an immense woman, 
whom Snob nevertheless bulHes), who is a favourite abomination of 
Leech, and pursued by that savage humourist into a thousand of his 
haunts. There he is, choosing waistcoats at the tailor's— such waist- 
coats ! Yonder he is giving a shilling to the sweeper who calls him 
" Capting ; " now he is offering a paletot to a huge "giant who is going 




out in the rain. They don't know their own pictures, very likely ; if 
they did, they would have a meeting, and thirty or forty of them would 
be deputed to thrash Mr. Leech. One feels a pity for the poor little 
bucks. In a minute or two, when we close this discourse and walk the 
streets, we shall see a dozen such. 

Ere we shut the desk up, just one word to point out to the 
unwary specially to note the backgrounds of landscapes in Leech's 
drawings— homely drawings of moor and wood, and seashore and 
London street— the scenes of his little dramas. They are as excel- 



414 



i 
CRITICAL REVIEWS. 






lently true to nature as the actors themselves ; our respect for the 
genius and humour which invented both increases as we look and 
look again at the designs. May we have more of them ; more 
pleasant Christmas volumes, over which we and our children can 
laugh together. Can we have too much of truth, and fun, and beauty, 
and kindness? 



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